THE
WHITE SAHIBS
IN INDIA
By
■reginaldVreynolds
^ w
LONDON
MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD
22 ESSEX STREET STRAND
*937
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS,
PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON
*
I
LTD.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
Impartiality is the virtue of a knave or a fool’s wisdom.
I desire neither.
The maker of munitions will give you the objective
facts regarding his traffic. The brewer will speak of his
trade without bias. The sun-dried satrap from Peshawar
will tell you the unvarnished facts about India. But an
honest man will give you his opinion.
Those who dislike my conclusions may dispute them.
But whoever would quarrel with my facts must enter
the lists with my authorities.
I owe thanks to many, but especially to Miss A. G.
Stock, and to Mr. Jasper Ridley, who was responsible for
the index. The dedication is to all who have suffered in
Indian jails for the crime of patriotism.
« *
Vll
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
. I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
- X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
xvi.
PACE
#
FOREWORD BY PUNDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU . XI
map of india . facing p. I
<s jOHN COMPANY” COMES TO INDIA . • 1
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE . • * *3
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE . • • • 2 9
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY . 49
THE REVOLT OF 1857 75
APPLYING THE LANCET 93
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS • • .120
THE INDIAN VILLAGER . • * • 1 44
INDIAN RENAISSANCE . • • * * . I 7 2
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES • 200
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT ... * 22 4
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS. .... 2 49
THE EVOLUTION OF ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY • 27^
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL ....
LAW AND ORDER ..." - 3 2 9
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE . • • * 374
APPENDIX ON THE PATIALA CASE ■ - 395
INDEX , * t * 4 01
k
IX
■
FOREWORD
Some accident, or the play of circumstances which
often seems to us as the working of an unknown fate, brought
Reginald Reynolds to India at a peculiar point in our
recent history. He came on the eve of a great eruption,
of human earthquakes which shook the hundreds of
millions of India as well as that Empire which still holds
sway here. He even played a little part in the tense drama
which followed the Lahore Congress of December 1929 and
preceded Gandhiji’s famous march to the salt sea and
civil disobedience. What happened to him immediately
after that I did not know, for suddenly we were all caught
up in the whirlwind of a mass upheaval and of a powerful
and entrenched Government trying to suppress it.
But Reynolds saw something of this drama and of this
great conflict between elemental forces, far greater than
the individuals concerned in it. And that gave him an
insight into the soul of India which was so passionately
struggling for freedom, into the appalling poverty and
misery of the Indian people which lay behind this elemental
urge, and into the social conflicts which were becoming
more and more evident and were colouring the nationalist
and racial aspects of our struggle. He saw this struggle,
as it should be seen, in the wider picture of the world
struggle.
I am glad therefore that he has written this book. From
one such as he a book on India claims attention. It is
immaterial whether one agrees with him or not in every-
thing he says. But what he says has knowledge behind it
and insight and an appreciation of the wider issues: And
so all of us, in India or England, can profit by his analysis
of our problems and think with greater clarity about them.
There are two kinds of books on India written by
Englishmen. The great majority of them are of the
FOREWORD
Nil
I in pr rial and patronising variety which point out to us the
h Iff It ilMtiny of the British Empire and our folly in not
appreciating this patent fact. They are generous with
their advice to us as to how we can fit in with this grandiose
Hellenic of tilings. The other variety of books, very few in
number, arc written by Englishmen who are attracted
towards our freedom struggle but are apt to consider it on
krntlmental grounds. Because their approach is more
hltmlly, sometimes they show a greater insight, but their
treatment is not very helpful in understanding the problems
that confront us.
I f we arc going to solve these problems, we must under-
line ! them. We have to unravel the knots that have tied
us up, and in order to do so our approach must be scientific
and must take into consideration the needs of the masses
in India. That is the problem of India, not the princes
in the landlords or other vested interests, English or Indian.
Imperialism has accentuated, and often produced, these
knots, so the imperialist approach is out of the question.
The sentimental approach common enough amongst my
own countrymen, though inevitable under the circum-
Ntanccs, does not carry us far.
Every book that helps us to understand scientifically
the background of the Indian struggle is to be welcomed.
And so I welcome this book and commend it to English-
men and Indians who want to help in the solution of one of
the major problems of our age.
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Ailahabady
February 25, 1937.
THE PR A TER OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S
SERVANTS
0 Almighty and most Merciful God , who art the Sovereign
Protector of all that Trust in Thee , and the Author of all Spiritual
and Temporal Blessings , we thy unworthy Creatures do most
humbly implore thy goodness for a plentiful Effusion of thy Grace
upon our Employers , thy Servants , the Right Honourable EAST
INDIA Company of ENGLAND. Prosper them in all their
publick Undertakings , and make them famous and successful in
all their Governments , Colonies , and Commerce both by Sea and
Land ; so that they may prove a publick Blessing by the increase
of Honour , Wealth and Power to our Native Country , as well as
to themselves . Continue their Favours towards us , and inspire
their Generals , Presidents , Agents and Councils in these remote
parts of the World , and all others that are entrusted with any
Authority under them , with Piety towards Thee our Cody and with
Wisdom y Fidelity and Circumspection in their several Stations ;
That we may all discharge our respective Duties faithfully y and
live Virtuouslyy in due Obedience to our superiorsy and in Love t
Peace and Charity one towards another : That these INDIAN
Nations among whom we dwell y seeing our sober and righteous
Conversationy may be induced to have a just esteem for our most
holy Profession of the Gospel of our Lordy and Saviour Jesus
■ Christy to whom be Honour , Praise and Glory , now and for ever,
AMEN.
[This prayer, used by the Company’s servants, is given
as quoted by the Rev. John Ovington, sometime chaplain
to the Company’s factory at Surat, in his book A Voyage
to Suratt in the Year 1689. (Published in London, 1696.)
Three such prayers were in 1698 “ approved by His Grace
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the »■ Lord Bishop of
London.”]
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THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
CHAPTER I
“JOHN COMPANY” COMES TO INDIA
The East India Company was formed in the year 1600,
during the most eventful period of World history. In
Europe a rising middle-class was engaged in the overthrow
of feudalism. The discovery of a New World beyond the
Atlantic had opened unknown possibilities of plunder to
European adventurers, whose rivalries drew nations into
mortal combat. Nor did the daring and inventiveness of
the age leave unassailed the strongholds of the Church.
The seeds were already sown from which the Thirty Years 5
War was to devastate Germany in the early seventeenth
century* while in Britain and the Netherlands Protes-
tantism had sharpened the national conflict with the
power of Catholic Spain.
Side by side with the conquest of a New World and
the emergence of a New Europe a deadly struggle was
still in progress between Christendom and the Moslem
peoples. While the Saracen had been driven from Granada
by the victorious arms of Castille and Aragon, a very
. different fate had overtaken the Christian outposts in the
East. Here the last lingering citadel of the Roman Empire
had fallen to the Ottoman Turks who had captured
Constantinople, where for centuries the Byzantine Emperors
had held the Mohammedan world at bay. Over South-east
Europe the Ottoman armies advanced, subduing the Balkan
countries and Hungary. Southward and eastward ‘“their
empire spread over Syria, Arabia and Egypt.
It is indeed strange that the East India Company, which
was destined to carry European domination to India and
found the most powerful of all the White Empires in Asia,
2
THE WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
should have been formed at such a time. Eighty year-
cSd S h ° ldS ° f Chr ; Stia " Europe, and° T oS
of the^ross Jr? ° f Vlenna in i68 3- The conflict
Ljross and the Crescent was actually at its meet
J' zenith in 1°^ ‘ he . powcr of the Mughals reached
r ,n Indla > under the reign of Akbar, it was the
in the b^t ^ *« *o hang'
. , fear of con q«est or absorption by Mohammedan
b f h ° f l "“» i2“,p«1s
tne sea-power of Islam in the Mediterranean, comes out
sharply in the extent of the persecution that was directed
against the Moors in Spain. In this country for 700 years
a brilliant Arab culture had flourished throughout 7 , he dark
centuries of the Middle Ages. To the Univershy of CordoO
the ornament of the world,” had journeyed students from
the most distant lands; and while Christian kings could not
T th f‘ r O'™ names this Arab State had provded free
which" Church ** P °° r - Such «« institutioL
H J p °7 er Came t0 its cnd l so that within I few gener-
aOTfOO L a r T hmg f r£mained ° f the Arab dvili ^tion
Moors were compelled to abandon their costume ,S
language their customs and eyen their names. The ’pub ic
pu kd dw 7 buiIt 311 over the countrywe e
pulled down and they were even forbidden “ to wash or
athe themselves either at home or elsewhere ” 2
bcficftTT 0 " C ° mplete ’ cxtcnd ing beyond religious
Sfaled t m ‘ n , Ute CUltUra ' details ’ can only be
Meanwhtle in R 7 J r ^ 7 3 StiU virile Nation.
and his OttnJ Eur ° pe Su,eiman the Magnificent
ana his Ottoman successors were still conquering and
India”, he creT ^“^P'e t0 ‘he furthest shores of
he crescent of Islam was supreme. New mosrmes
arose among the fallen splendours of Byzantium- anJthc
most powerful monarch of Europe the HolJ P “
v, or s p *, p n.£, SZ STZ
Netherlands had even paid tribute to the Turkish Soldan.
“JOHN COMPANY” COMES TO INDIA 3
It was at this time — when Charles V was Holy Roman
Emperor and the armies of Suleiman had occupied the
whole of South-eastern Europe — that the Mughals had
invaded India from the north and Babar had established
his dynasty at Delhi. This descendant of the conqueror
Tamurlane came to conquer and to rule where his famous
ancestor had only looted and laid waste. Upon the plains
of Panipat the Mughal defeated the Afghan Soldan who
then ruled in Delhi and founded the last Oriental Empire
that was to fall eventually to adventurers from furthest
Europe. Under the Mughals this Empire rose to a level
of civilisation which had no contemporary equal except
in China, where peace and prosperity were maintained
under the Ming dynasty.
The famous Company whose name was to become a
by-word in history was not the first or the only commercial
venture by which European merchants endeavoured to
enrich themselves from the fabled treasures of Hindustan,
Sir Francis Drake, on one of his expeditions to harass the
preparations of the Invincible Armada, had met a Portu-
guese carrack, laden with Indian goods, and following the
piratical tradition of which he was no mean example, had
possessed himself of her rich spoils. A similar prize was
made by an expedition fitted out for the West Indies by
Sir Walter Raleigh, which encountered such another
carrack near the Azores and carried her to Dartmouth.
“This,” writes James Mill, “was the largest vessel which
had ever been seen in England, laden with spices, calicoes,
silks, gold, pearls, drugs, porcelain, ebony, etc., and stimu-
lated the impatience of the English to be engaged in so
opulent a commerce.” 3
Accordingly in 1589 “divers merchants” made appli-
cation to the Lords of Council for permission to send
three ships and as many pinnaces to India. They enumer-
ated the places at which the Portuguese had already made
settlements and might claim exclusive trading rights, but
mentioned other places as open to their enterprise.
The fate of this application is unknown, but two years
later an expedition was fitted out under the command of
a certain Captain Raymond for the purpose of plundering
B
4 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the Portuguese. It met with disaster; and during the period
of discouragement which appears to have followed, the
.^ n *595) sent four ships to India for purposes of trade.
This exploit,” writes Mill, “added fuel at once to the
jealousy and to the ambition of the English.” An associ-
ation was formed in 1599, which, after considerable delays
occasioned by diplomatic considerations, received its
charter the following year. The charter was typical of
those issued to similar merchant ventures and constituted
the East India Company by the name of “The Governor
and Company of the Merchants of London, trading to the
East Indies.”
The spirit and temper of the middle-class merchants
who formed the Company is well illustrated by their
attitude when negotiating with the Government for their
charter. For reasons which can only be conjectured, the
Government, whilst the matter was still under consideration,
made application to the merchants’ committee for the
employment of Sir Edward Michelbourne in their expe-
dition. The Committee’s reply, which James Mill found
among the “Minutes of a General Court of Adventurers”
in the files of the Indian Register Office, states plainly
their objection to the Government’s proposal. They were
resolved “not to employ any gentlemen in any place of
charge” and requested that they might “be allowed to
sort theire business with men of their own qualitye, lest
suspicion of employm 1 of gentletnen being taken hold uppon
by the generalitie, do dryve a great number of the adven-
turers to withdraw their contributions.” 4
Armed at last with their Charter, 5 the Merchants in
1601 sent their first fleet to the Indies. Sailing from Torbay,
the Company’s ships reached the island of Sumatra and
sailed thence to Java, capturing on their way a Portuguese
vessel, laden with calicoes and spices. It is not difficult
to understand the “handsome profit” reaped by the owners
from this voyage. 6 Further expeditions followed to the
islands of the Indian Ocean, but the possibility of trading
in Indian cloths and calicoes soon drew the English
adventurers to India itself. Permission was obtained to
establish “factories” (or trading posts) at Ahmedabad and
COMES TO INDIA
“ JOHN COMPANY ”
three other places, the “firman” of the Mughal Emperor
confirming these privileges being received in 1613.
The history of the Company as a force in Indian politics
now began in earnest. To the Mughal Court went Sir
Thomas Roe in the character of the Royal Ambassador
of England. He advised, however, against the continuance
of the embassy. “A meaner agent,” he counselled the
Company, “would, among these proud Moors better
affect your business. . . . Half my charge shall corrupt
all this court to be your slaves.” 7 Nevertheless, he did his
best to bring Dutch competitors into disrepute. “The
Dutch,” he wrote, “are arrived at Surat from the Red
Sea, with some money and Southern commodities. I have
done my best to disgrace them, but could not turn them
out without further danger.” 8
The great sub-continent of India, which was from then
onward to fall slowly and piece-meal into the hands of the
Company, is described by James Mill as “at that time the
seat of one of the most extensive and splendid monarchies
on the surface of the globe.” 0 Akbar, the grandson of
Babar, founder of the Mughal Empire, ruled from 1542
to 1605 over the greater part of India and maintained
complete religious toleration. Already the Mughals, like
previous invaders of the country, were in the process of
becoming Indianised : they had ceased to regard themselves
as strangers, and had no home but India. Cultural forces
had also been at work for years to blend the rival traditions
of race and religion into what was slowly becoming a syn-
• thesis of Indian character. 1 0
This synthesis had been openly urged by the finer
spirits of the preceding century. From the time of the
Hindu teacher Ramanand and his Moslem disciple Kabir
the conception of a cultural unity had taken root in the
country, and to this day Kabir is honoured both by Hindus
and Mohammedans. In language the same tendency was
evident; for just as modern English evolved from Anglo-
Saxon and Norman French, so a new language had grown
up in the Northern plains of India. This was the Urdu
language, a composite of Hindi with words of Persian
origin introduced by the Moslems. 11
6
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Akbar was a great statesman who knew the value of
a united country. Deliberately he had fostered this syn-
thetic process, appointing Hindus as his ministers and
generals, encouraging mixed marriages and abolishing
discriminatory laws. Badauni, a contemporary historian
and an orthodox Moslem, who did not approve of the
Emperor, wrote of him as follows : — 1 2
“His Majesty collected the opinions of everyone,
especially of such as were not Moslems. . . . His Majesty
has passed through the most various phases, and through
all sorts of religious practices and sectarian beliefs, and
has collected everything which people can find in books,
with a talent of selection peculiar to him, and a spirit
of inquiry opposed to every (Islamic) principle. Thus a
faith based on some elementary principles traced itself
on the mirror of his heart, and as a result of all the
influences brought to bear on His Majesty, there grew,
gradually as the outline on a stone, the conviction in
his heart that there were sensible men in all religions,
and abstemious thinkers, and men endowed with miracu-
lous powers, among all nations. If some true knowledge
was thus everywhere to be found, why should truth be
confined to one religion?”
The Jesuit fathers who visited Akbar’s court saw in
him “the common fault of the atheist, who refuses to
make reason subservient to faith.” Yet this illiterate doubter
was the greatest political strategist of his age and the
nearest approach to that non-existent ideal, a benevolent
despot. By his orders many vital reforms were initiated,
including the prohibition of compulsory Sati 1 3 (the self-
immolation of Hindu widows) and of the enslavement of
prisoners captured in war, 14 . Jawarharlal Nehru, in his
Glimpses of World History , quotes the highest tribute paid
to Akbar’s statesmanship by those very Portuguese mission-
aries who had denounced his “atheism”:,,
“He was a prince,” they said, “belched of all, firm
with the great, kind to those of low estate and just to all
men ... so that every man believed the King was on
his side.” 16
COMES TO INDIA
“JOHN COMPANY
Not only, however, was there internal peace within the
Mughal dominions and a growing cultural harmony,
but under Akbar the country had become prosperous and
the taxation of the peasantry had decreased. Of the village
republics more will be said later, but it must not be for-
gotten that the real India of the seventeenth century was
(as it still is) village India. While the villages remained
self-governing entities in respect of justice, education, and
the administration of their internal affairs, the despotism
of changing dynasties affected the mass of the people in
little but the extent of their annual taxation. War was as
yet a matter of relatively small professional armies engaged
in conflicts which hardly affected the even rhythm of the
village economy. And while England displayed the shadow
of democracy beneath the growing authority of a Parliament
of landlords, the Indian village enjoyed the reality of a local
autonomy which suffered little interference from the
despotism of her kings.
“Happy is the nation which has no history,” runs the
old adage, and it is perhaps significant that James Mill,
searching in vain for material, should have written of the
Hindus: “This people, indeed, are perfectly destitute of
historical records.” 16 History, however, had spread its
net over the vast sub-continent with the coming of the
Mohammedan conquerors; and from now onwards the
even balance of its village life was to feel increasingly the
impact of an outside world. Yet over 200 years later a great
British administrator, Sir Charles Metcalfe, who afterwards
became Acting Governor-General of India, wrote as follows
concerning the last surviving Village Communities, which
yet remained in 1830 in Northern India:
“The Village Communities are little Republics, having
nearly everything that they want within themselves,
and almost independent of any foreign relations. They
seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after
dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds to revolution;
Hindu, Pathan, Mughal, Mahratta, Sikh, English, are
masters in turn; but the Village Communities remain
the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify
themselves; a hostile army passes through the country;
8
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the Village Community collect their cattle within their
walls, and let the enemy pass unprovoked. If plunder
and devastation be directed against themselves and
the force employed be irresistible, they flee to friendly
villages at a distance, but when the storm has passed
over they return and resume their occupation. If a
country remain for a series of years the scene of continual
and massacre, so that the villages cannot be
inhabited, the villagers nevertheless return whenever
the power of peaceable possession revives. A generation
may pass away, but the succeeding generation will return.
I he sons will take the places of their fathers, the same site
tor the village, the same position for the houses, the same
lands, will be reoccupied by the descendants of those who
were driven out when the village was depopulated:
and it is not a trifling matter that will drive them out,
tor they will often maintain their post through times of
disturbance and convulsion, and acquire strength suffi-
Cie ^u° resi . st P^ a S e and oppression with success.
The union of the Village Communities, each one
forming a separate little State in itself, has, I conceive
contributed more than any other cause to the preser-
vation of the people of India through all revolutions
and changes which they have suffered, and it is in a
high degree conducive to their happiness and to the
enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.
1 wish, therefore, that the Village Constitutions may never
be disturbed, and I dread everything that has a tendency
to break them up.” 17 . 7
Similar quotations will be given later to show that this
system was by no means confined to any one part of the
country, but was practically universal.
A final point to be noted at the opening of this new era
o Indian history is the question of over-seas commerce.
As far back as 200 b.c. the ports of Arabia and Ceylon
had been m the hands of the traders of Gujerat, and in the
fourth century a.d. they had penetrated Persia and East
Africa, whilst large Hindu ships had visited the North Coast
of Socotra. The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hian has recorded in
ms journal how in the early years of the fifth century he
sailed /
COMES TO INDIA
“JOHN COMPANY”
“from the mouth of the Ganges to Ceylon, from Ceylon
to Java and from Java to China in ships maimed by
Indian crews.”
In the fourteenth century Friar Oderic had crossed the
Indian Ocean in a ship that carried seven hundred people
and was manned by Rajput sailors. 1 8 Ship-building
remained an important industry right up to the end of the
eighteenth century, when the Governor-General (Lord
Wellesley) wrote in a report of the year 1800:
“The port of Calcutta contains about 10,000 tons of
shipping, built in India of a description calculated for
the conveyance of cargo to England.” 19
But the ships of which Lord Wellesley wrote, though
built of Indian timber by Indian workmen, were by that
time the property of British merchants. The sea-trade
was actually the first source of wealth to pass from Indian
hands into those of Western adventurers.
In 1688 we read of Indian ships being seized by the
Company’s factors at Bombay; an act of aggression for
which the Company was compelled to pay compensation
when Aurungzib blockaded Bombay and captured the
factory at Surat. 2 0 But there is no indication that these .
Indian vessels were anything more than coastal craft.
With the rise of the Mahratha power during the latter half
of the seventeenth century a Hindu fleet was established
for a time under the rule of Sivaji, the great Mahratha chief,
who liberated Central India from the Mughals. Unfor-
tunately the admiral’s son, who succeeded him in office,
turned pirate; and a predatory community established
itself upon the Western coast until its principal stronghold
was stormed by a combined British and Mahratha force ,
in 1756.
But with the coming of Portuguese, Dutch, British and
French adventurers into those tropic seas we read no more
of Indian merchants plying their trade abroad in ships
owned and manned by Indians. Was it the paralysing hand
of the Mughal conqueror that had fallen upon the ports of
Gujerat? Or did these strangers from the West, who
10 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
preyed by custom upon one another, turn their artillery
with equal readiness upon the unprotected native vessels?
History tells us little.
Macaulay, however, makes some reference to piracy in
the Indian Ocean towards the end of the seventeenth
century . 81 Adventurers who durst not show themselves
in the Thames found a ready market for their ill-gotten
spices and stuffs at New York. Even the Puritans of New
England, who in sanctimonious austerity surpassed even
their brethren of Scotland, were accused of conniving at
the wickedness, which enabled them to enjoy abundantly
and cheaply the produce of Indian looms and Chinese
tea plantations.” Against these pests was sent the notorious
Captain Kidd, carrying with him “besides the ordinary
letters of marque, a commission under the Great Seal
empowering him to seize pirates, and to take them to some
place where they might be dealt with according to law.”
The worthy captain, however, found piracy itself more
profitable. He began by robbing 'Mussulmans, and
speedily proceeded from Mussulmans to Armenians, from
Armenians to Portuguese. The Adventure Galley took such
quantities of cotton and silk, sugar and coffee, cinammon
and pepper that the very foremast men received from a
hundred to two hundred pounds each. . . . He burned
houses j he massacred peasantry.” Kidd does not appear
to have known where to draw the line, and (failing to
confine his depredations to Mussulmans, Armenians and
Portuguese) he came to a bad end at Execution Dock.
According to Macaulay the Indian Ocean “swarmed with
pirates * of this kind ‘ ‘ of whose rapacity and cruelty frightful
stories were told.”
Whether these pirates contributed to the annihilation of
Indian shipping or not it is difficult to say. Whatever the
cause, the overseas trade of India passed into the hands
of the White Sahibs to whom this great Sub-continent was
the promised land of destiny.
JOHN COMPANY
COMES TO INDIA
1 1
£(
J?
NOTES
I Since this chapter was written the Catholic aristocracy, which
overthrew the Moors and persecuted them as infidels, has brought
them back into Spain as the saviours of the Christian Church.
* An interesting example of the misdemeanours of the Moors is to
be found in an extract from the “Apostacies and Treasons of the
Moriscoes,” drawn up by the Archbishop of Valencia in 1602 and
quoted by Jawarharlal Nehru in his Glimpses of World History, The
Moriscoes (or Moors), says the Archbishop, “Commended nothing so
much as that liberty of conscience in all matters of religion which
the Turks, and all other Mohammedans, suffer their subjects to enjoy. 1 *
This is surely an unconscious confession that, at the commencement
of the seventeenth century, the dynasties of Islam felt far more secure
than those of Christendom.
* See Mill’s History of British India, Vol I, p. 13 (Fifth Edition).
Another version of the origin of Empire was recently given by Sir
Thomas Inskip, however. He said that “when the English people
dipped into the Bible they began to realise the greatness of the world
and the possibilities of achieving something greater than the mere
occupation of their native country.” (Speech as reported in the Bristol
Evening World, October 7th, 1936.)
4 Quoted by Mill Vol I, p. 16.
* The Charter conferred a monopoly of the Indian Trade upon the
Company. It was often infringed, but only finally abolished in 1813.
* Mill. Vol I, p. 19.
7 Mill. Vol I, p. 24. The Great Mughal sent Sir Thomas strange
presents. “Hoggs flesh, deare, a theefe and a whore ” was his description
of bounties received.
8 Mill. Vol I, p. 25.
* Mill, Vol I, p. 21.
Ovington in 1696 extols the wealth of India and says “we cannot
deny it that Transcendency which its Monarch pretends to, of being
Superior to other Nations of the Earth.” ( Voyage to Suratt in 1689.
London, 1696.)
14 Torrens in his work Empire in Asia (1872) remarks that “during
the reigns of the earlier Emperors of Delhi to the middle of the seven-
teenth century complete tolerance was shown to all religions.” He
points out that there was no religious distinction in making Civil
appointments. Thomas Munro emphasised the same point. (See
Dutt’s Economic History of British India , Vol I, p. 32 1 .) See also Walter
Hamilton’s East India Gazetteer (London, 1829) Vol II, p, 478.
II The name Hindustani is used to-day to include both Hindi and
Urdu, the difference between the two being mainly the fact that essen-
tially the same language is called Urdu when written in Arabic charac-
ters and Hindi when Sanskrit characters are used. In its various
dialects it is understood by about half the present population of India.
1 1 Quoted by Jawarharlal Nehru in Glimpses of World History , Vol I,
pp. 486, 487.
12
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
13 Ovington mentions the suppression of Sati by the Mughals and
says it was in his time “almost laid aside by the Orders which the
Nabobs receive for suppressing and extinguishing it in their Provinces,
And now it is very rare, except it be some Rajah’s wives,” Voyage to
Suratt in 1689, by J. Ovington, M.A., Chaplain to His Majesty. (London,
1696.) See also Encyclopedia Britannica.” Article on Suttee,
14 About the same time the American trade in African slaves was
begun by Sir John Hawkins.
1 6 Glimpses of World History, Vol I, p. 489.
Edward Thompson in his History of India points out that Akbar was
amazed that the Portuguese burnt heretics and that “what he would
have thought of our witch burnings we can guess, for he detested
Suite and tried to put it down more courageously and with more
success than our own Government in its vacillating efforts prior to
1829. ... If civilisation is more than a high standard of material comfort
. . , the balance is certainly on Akbar’s side against any contemporary
ruler in the world.”
Similar views are expressed by Vincent Smith in the Oxford History
of India .
13 Mill, Vol I, p. 1 1 6. The Moslem conquerors, however, brought
with them the profession of the historian j and one of them has recorded
the security of life and property under the reign of Shir Shah, the
usurper who followed Babar. His vivid sentences are quoted in the
Cambridge Shorter History of India, (p. 334).
17 Quoted by R, G. Dutt in his Economic History of British India ,
Vol I, pp. 386-7.
Mr. Isaiah Bowman, Ph.D., Director of the American Geographical
Society of New York, writes in his section on India in The New World
(London, 1926): “Through all the long and complicated history of
India . . . the village organisation and confederations of village
communities have been maintained. These confederations have been
the . most durable organisation in India, and the improvement of
Indian conditions can be carried on only if attention is paid to the value
of the village community as the basis of self-government.” How far
this maxim has been followed will be examined in Chapter VIII,
18 These facts concerning Indian shipping are taken from the Bombay
Gazetteer, Vol I, Pt. I, “History of Gujerat.”
19 Quoted by Digby in Prosperous British India.
30 Cambridge Shorter History , p. 522.
In the museum at Madras there are willow pattern plates in which
there are no human figures. Moslems have a religious objection to the
pictorial representation of animal life, which they regard as a form of
idolatry ; and it^ is clear that these plates were made expressly for the
Indian market in the days of Mohammedan rule. They are possibly
the last indication of any systematic trade conducted directly between
India and the Far East until that trade was resumed under British rule.
31 History of England , Chapter XXV.
CHAPTER II
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE
Akear died in the year 1605. No succeeding Emperor
equalled him either in power or character. The seventeenth
century in India was an age of magnificence which saw
the building of the Taj Mahal and the making of the
famous Peacock Throne; but it was also an age of social
disintegration. The one virtue of autocrats, which is
strength, declined among the unrivalled luxuries of the
Mughal court. “Power always corrupts, 11 said Lord
Acton, Absolute power absolutely corrupts. 11 So it was
with the Mughals in India.
With Aurungzib, who came to the throne in 16*0 the
country was thrown back a hundred years in its develop-
ment by a policy of religious intolerance. Hindu temples
were destroyed in many parts of the land and a poll-tax
was imposed upon the Hindu population. Though warned
by his subjects, this bigoted emperor pursued a policy which
impoverished the country and created disunion among its
people. Nor did they recover unity until a new foreign
conqueror had taken advantage of their problems and
subdued the entire land to his rule.
In Europe meanwhile the balance of power was slowly
shifting. In a past generation Captain John Smith had
reported a Spanish soldier’s saying that “The sun never sets
on the Spanish Dominion V but France was already
supplanting Spam as the leading power of the European
continent. The appearance of a French East India Company
in 1004 was therefore an important challenge to the British
merchants. Neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch had proved
formidable rivals, but the conflicting interests of France
and England were more evenly matched in their arma-
ments. While the princes of India fought among themselves
for the spoils of the Mughal Empire, a more desperate
13
14 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
struggle was being prepared in which the princes were to
be the pawns of European Powers.
In 1639 the East India Company had obtained land
at Madras on which they built themselves a fort. Bombay
had been held by the Portuguese since 1530, but passed into
English hands in 1662, as part of Catherine of Braganza’s
dowry on her marriage to Charles II. Six years later it
was leased to the Company.* The third great centre of
British penetration was established at Calcutta in 1690.
A premature effort on the part of the Company to seize
political power was made in 1686, when a military expedi-
tion was sent against Aurungzib; but this attempt was a
complete failure ; and for the rest of the century the Company
confined its activities to the trade passing through its
factories. “Scarcely any man,” wrote Macaulay, “however
sagacious, would have thought it possible that a trading
company, separated from India by 15,000 miles of sea, and
possessing only a few acres for the purpose of commerce,
would, in less than a hundred years, spread its empire
from Cape Cormorin to the eternal snows of the
Himalayas.” 3
With the eighteenth century comes the end of the Mughal
power. In the North-west the Sikhs rebelled and set up
an independent state in the Punjab — “the Land of the Five
Rivers.” The Sikh community had been founded by the
great religious leader, Nanak, who had endeavoured, like
other progressive spirits of his age, to combine what was
best in the Hindu and Moslem religions. From the Hindu
tradition Nanak took the doctrine of non-violence, and for
generations this was a dominant characteristic of his
followers. But the policy of the later Mughal rulers forced
this peaceful community to build up one of the most for-
midable fighting organisations in India’s military history.
In Central India a new Hindu power was rising at the
same time to challenge the Mughal despots. Though they
had a warlike past, the Mahrathas, in common with other
Hindu peoples, were innocent of any desire to proselytize,
and consequently had no tradition of religious wars. An
eighteenth century observer wrote of the Hindu religion
that it could be called
BIRDS OP PREY AND PASSAGE 15
“an amiable, august and venerable object of specu-
lation, having for a long succession of ages formed a
race of mild, friendly, patient and laborious men. Several
of its tenets are indeed grossly erroneous, but amidst all
the various errors by which the several nations have been
misled, no blood was ever spilt on their account. They
have never spread fire and sword among mankind.” 4
The tyrannies of the Mughals had created, however, a
new phenomenon in Indian history — a form of Hindu
nationalism which was directed against the Moslem con-
queror. Of this new nationalism the Mahratha chiefs were
the spear-head, and their wars may be distinguished from
mere dynastic struggles. Something in the nature of a
national consciousness was slowly taking shape; while the
first symptoms of social revolt are to be found in the peasant
risings that took place in certain localities. 6
Facing this slow paralysis of its power throughout India,
the Mughal Empire was in no condition to meet the blow
which now descended suddenly upon Delhi from the north.
The descendants of Akbar and the Emperors of Samarkand,
whose victorious line derived from Tamurlane and Genghis
Khan, were now to be themselves the prey of conquerors
following in the footsteps of Babar. Twice in twenty years
their capital was sacked and plundered by the marauding-
hosts of Persia, led by Nadir Shah and his successor Ahmed
Shah Durrani. Upon the fateful field of Panipat, where
Babar had won the wealth of India for the Mughal dynasty,
Durrani met the advancing armies of the Mahrathas, whose
power had spread northwards over the ruins of the Delhi
Empire. The Persian Shah was victorious, but was obliged
to return to his own dominions, leaving the Mahratha
chiefs the strongest force in India that could grapple with
her new enemies. For while the armies of the Mughals
and the Mahrathas had been concentrated upon the
Northern plains the British merchants had made them-
selves virtual masters of Bengal.
The genius of a Frenchman (Dupleix) had first conceived
the possibility of a European Empire in India; and to
achieve this end in the interests of France he knew that
he must first destroy his British rivals. French mercenaries,
l6 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
with their superior European arms, were hired by the
Indian Princes in their wars, and the French grew powerful
in the south to the peril of the British settlement at Madras.
Here the inhabitants in 1746 were bombarded by a French
fleet and compelled to capitulate, saving their town by a
ransom to the French commander, Labourdonnais. 6
The tactics of Dupleix were imitated with even more
success on the other side by Robert Clive. The British
in the campaigns that followed had both the supremacy
on the seas and the interest of their home government
(given more grudgingly on the French side) to assist their
plans. Both these factors were essential to adversaries
contending at such a distance from their home shores,
and the British proved victorious because in both respect
they were better placed.
The battle of Plassey in 1757 marks, however, the real
turning-point in Indian history. Suraj-ad-dowla, the Subah-
dar of Bengal, had quarrelled with the East India Company’s
representatives in Calcutta. The nominal causes of this
quarrel were the building of new British batteries on the
Hugli and the fact that the British had given shelter to
a fugitive from the Subahdar’s dominions; but it is probable
that much weightier reasons prompted the attack which
Suraj-ad-dowla made upon the Company’s factories in
Bengal. Mr. H. H. Dodwell says that “he had been alarmed
by the events which had been taking place in Southern
India, and had been closely watching the Europeans settled
on the Hugli, lest they should attempt to repeat in Bengal
operations which had involved the overthrow or death of
four Muslim rulers in the Carnartic and the Deccan.” 7
Having seized an English factory at Kasimbazar, Suraj-
ad-dowla therefore marched suddenly upon Calcutta, and
captured Fort William. All the English residents, except
those who had sought refuge on the Company’s ships,
were taken prisoners; but when their leader, Mr. Holwell,
was brought bound before Suraj-ad-dowla the latter
ordered him to be set loose “and assured him, upon the
faith of a soldier, that of the heads of him and his com-
panions, not a hair should be touched.” 8
The story of what followed is familiar to every English
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE 17
schoolboy under the name of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
As there has been considerable controversy concerning
this incident, it is perhaps a pardonable digression to state
some of the points of view that have been expressed with
regard to it.
According to James Mill the death of the Black Hole
victims was due to an accident:
“When evening, however, came, it was a question
with the guards to whom they were intrusted, how
they might be secured for the night. Some search was
made for a convenient apartment; but none was found;
upon which information was obtained of a place which
the English themselves had employed as a prison. It
was unhappily a small, ill-aired, and unwholesome
dungeon, called the Black Hole; and the English had
their own practice to thank for suggesting it to the
officers of the Subahdar as a fit place of confinement.
Out of 143 unfortunate individuals thrust in, only
twenty- three were taken out alive in the morning.” 9
*
In further explanation, Mill appends an important
footnote. “The atrocities of English imprisonment at
home,” he writes, “not then exposed to detestation by
the labours of Howard, too naturally reconciled English-
men abroad to the use of dungeons: of Black Holes . . .-
Had no Black Hole existed (as none ought to exist anywhere,
least of all in the sultry and unwholesome climate of Bengal)
those who perished in the Black Hole of Calcutta would
have experienced a different fate.” Mill then quotes from
a Select (Parliamentary) Committee which described the
common jail at Calcutta as “a miserable and pestilential
place,” and he reproduces the evidence given on this
subject by two witnesses, one of whom said :
“The gaol is an old ruin of a house; there were very
few windows to admit air, and those very small. He asked
the gaoler how many souls were then confined in the
prison? Who answered, upwards of 170, blacks and
whites included — that there was no gaol allowance, that
many persons had died for want of the necessaries of life.
The nauseous smells, arising from such a crowded place,
were beyond expression. Besides the prisoners, the
*8 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
number of women and attendants, to carry in provisions
and dress victuals, was so great, that it was astonishing
that any person could long survive such a situation. It
was the most horrible place he ever saw, take it altogether.
The other witness said, It is divided into small apart-
ments, and those very bad ; the stench dreadful, and more
offensive than he ever experienced in this country — that
there is no thorough draft of air- — the windows are
neither large nor numerous — the rooms low — that it
would be impossible for any European to exist any
length of time in the prison— that debtors and criminals
were not separated.’ 5 10
A different view was taken of the evidence by Horace
Wilson, who edited and extended the work of James Mill.
He held that the Black Hole " was no dungeon at all; it
was a chamber above ground, small and ill-aired only
with reference to the number of persons forced into it.”
Mr. Wilson regarded the incident as “an exemplification
of Mohammedan insolence, intolerance and cruelty; and
• *
m contemplating the signal retribution by which it has
been punished, a mind susceptible of reverence, though
free from superstition, can scarcely resist the impression
that the course of events was guided by higher influences
than the passions and purposes of man.” 11
On the Indian side we find that the contemporary
historian who wrote the Siyar Mutakharin and described the
capture of Calcutta does not so much as mention this in-
cident though he was opposed to Suraj-ad-dowla, whom he
regarded as a usurper. Mill quotes a note by the translator
of this work, who claimed that the story of the Black Hole
was unknown in Bengal. 12 In modern times some doubt
had even been thrown on the historicity of this event, on
the grounds that, though there are various accounts by
alleged survivors, all bear indications of having been
copied from the same source, and that source a doubtful
one. In such confusion of opinion perhaps the best summing-
up is that given by Mr. Dodwell: “This event does not
deserve the title of ‘massacre’ by which it has long been
known, for there is nothing to show that the fate of the
prisoners was in any way designed. But neither does there
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE
19
appear ground for discrediting the evidence of more than
one survivor or for supposing that no such incident
occurred.” 13
These events took place in 1756, and before the end of
the year Glive reached the Hugli with five King’s ships and
five of the Company’s, bearing British troops and “Sepoys,”
as the Indian soldiers with European arms and training
were called. “Just at this crisis,” writes the contemporary
Indian historian of the Siyar Mutakharin , “the flames of war
broke out between the French and English — two nations
who had disputes between themselves, of five or six hundred
years’ standing, and who, after proceeding to bloodshed,
wars, battles and massacres for a number of years, would
lay down their arms by common agreement and take breath
on both sides, in order to come to blows again and to fight
with as much fury as ever.” 14
The French at that time had a small force in Bengal
with field artillery, and by combining with the army of
Suraj-ad-dowla could almost certainly have defeated the
forces under Clive. The British, however, appear to have
heard of the outbreak of war in Europe before the French;
and Clive hastened to effect a treaty with the ruler of Bengal
before the French commander, realising the situation,
could make so dangerous an alliance.
In February of 1757 a treaty was therefore concluded
between Suraj-ad-dowla and the British. The Subahdar
agreed to restore the Company’s factories with all the
privileges they had enjoyed in the past. The Company
were to be allowed to fortify Calcutta, and to be com-
pensated for their losses in the war. In addition to this an
alliance, both offensive and defensive, was proposed by
Suraj-ad-dowla and ratified by both parties. 15
The question now arose as to whether the British, having
made peace with Suraj-ad-dowla, should immediately
attack the French or should come to a local agreement of
neutrality. For a time the latter counsel prevailed, more
especially as the Subahdar, who does not appear at any
time to have trusted the British, wished to remain at peace
with both parties. The situation was completely changed,
however, by the news that Ahmed Shah Durrani had
2o The write sahibs in India
captured Delhi and was threatening Bengal. Suraj-ad-
dowla immediately wrote to his new British allies for
support; and the very day that this letter was received,
revealing a new embarrassment in the Subahdar’s position,
reinforcements arrived from Bombay for the British forces. 10
The treaty signed with Suraj-ad-dowla less than a month
before had now no longer any value. Clive resolved to
attack both the French and the Bengal Government, if
necessarily simultaneously. James Mill quotes Clive’s own
account of the deliberations by which this decision was
reached at a committee of four, consisting of Clive, the
Governor (Mr. Drake) and two others:
Mr. Becher gave his opinion for a neutrality, Major
Kilpatrick, for a neutrality; he himself gave his opinion
for the attack of the place; Mr. Drake gave an opinion
that nobody could make anything of. Major Kilpatrick
then asked him, whether he thought the forces and
squadron could attack Chandernagor and the Nabob’s
army at the same time? — he said, he thought they could;
upon which Major Kilpatrick desired to withdraw his
opinion, and to be of his. They voted Mr. Drake’s no
opinion at all; and Major Kilpatrick and he being the
majority, a letter was written to Admiral Watson, desiring
him to co-operate in the attack on Chandernagor.” 17
It is not uninteresting to note that such an important
historical decision was taken in such an unorthodox manner,
upon which Mill gives his comment that “there is some-
thing ludicrous in voting a man’s opinion to be no opinion;
yet the indecisive, hesitating, ambiguous propositions of
men who know not what resolution to take, cannot, in
general, perhaps, be treated by a better rule.”
The French were accordingly attacked, and simul-
taneously intrigues were started to engineer a rebellion in
Bengal against the Subahdar. In later years Clive told the
House of Commons “that after Chandernagor was resolved
to be attacked, he repeatedly said to the Committee, as
well as to others, that they could not stop there, but must
go further; that having established themselves by force
and not by consent of the Nabob, he would endeavour to
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE 21
drive them out again.” Clive therefore suggested “the
necessity of a revolution,” which was agreed upon, whilst
“the management of that revolution was, with consent
of the Committee, left to Mr. Watts, who was resident at
the Nabob’s capital.” 18
Mir Jafar was the name of the officer “pitched upon to be
the person to place in the room of Suraj-ad-dowla,” accord-
ing to Clive’s own statement. The basis of the bargain
agreed upon by the two parties was that in return for
British support against their ally Suraj-ad-dowla, to over-
throw the Subahdar and put Mir Jafar in his place, Mir
Jafar promised, on seizing the Government, to pay an
enormous sum of money to the Company and its servants.
This sum included 10,000,000 rupees to the East India
Company itself, 5,000,000 rupees to the English inhabitants
of Calcutta, 2,500,000 for the naval squadron, 280,000 each
for Clive himself and the Governor, and 240,000 each
for the other members of the Calcutta Committee. 19
Such was the situation when the British forces marched
against Suraj-ad-dowla. Mir Jafar found it impossible to
desert with his troops before the battle of Plassey, because,
as he explained in a letter to the British, the suspicions of the
Subahdar had been aroused. He had been forced to
swear allegiance upon the Koran, and found it impossible *
to put his plans into operation till he was actually on the
battlefield. The famous battle of Plassey, which took place
on June 23rd, 1757, was in reality won before it was fought.
The intrigues in the Bengal court 20 had made the entire
army of Suraj-ad-dowla utterly unreliable, and Mir Jafar’s
forces took no part in the mock conflict. “The battle.”
writes Mill, “was nothing but a distant cannonade.” After
this had continued the greater part of the day Clive observed
that Mir Jafar was moving off with his troops. He there-
fore advanced, and the Subahdar, who, in the words of
Clive, 21 “had no confidence in his army nor his army in
him,” fled from the field.
Bengal had been won with a loss on the Company’s side
of twenty British soldiers (killed or wounded) sixteen Sepoys
killed and thirty-six wounded. Mir Jafar, who now seized
the Government according to plan, was a mere puppet in
22 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the hands of the Company. Suraj-ad-dowla was caught and
assassinated ; and nothing remained for the moment but the
payment of the vast sums promised to the Company and
its officers for their assistance.
It was now realised for the first time that these amounts
were so excessive as to be impossible. Provision, however,
had been made by Clive to write off at least a consider-
able portion of the total sum. Among the agents employed
by the Company to intrigue at the Bengal court was a
wealthy Indian merchant named Omichand, who had often
been used by the Company as an intermediary in its
negotiations with the Bengal Government. When Suraj-ad-
dowla had attacked Calcutta Omicliand had been thrown
into prison by the Government of Calcutta on suspicion of
complicity with the enemy, and during the war his
possessions had been plundered. 22
In spite of these misfortunes Omichand had supplied
with provisions those of the British residents who had
suffered more than himself and he had interceded with
Suraj-ad-dowla on behalf of his prisoners. After this
Omichand left Calcutta with the Subahdar and his army
and acted in concert with Mr. Watts of the East India
Company to bring about the downfall of the Indian ruler.
In the negotiations that followed between the Company
and the conspirators as to the amounts to be paid from the
Bengal treasury to the various participants in the plot,
it is alleged that Omichand threatened to disclose the whole
affair if he did not receive as his share a quarter of the
jewels and five per cent of the treasure.
This exorbitant demand was met by Clive with apparent
acquiescence. Two treaties were drawn up between Mir
Jafar and the Company, one stipulating and ratifying
Omichand's terms and one in which Omichand was not
mentioned. The first treaty was a dummy, merely to show
to the Indian merchant in order to convince him. The
second was the real treaty, as agreed upon by the Company
and the other conspirators, and later put into effect. Admiral
Watson, who commanded the British naval squadron on the
Hugli, refused to sign the dummy treaty, having certain
scruples of conscience; but this difficulty the Calcutta
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE
23
Committee circumvented by forging his name. 23 Thus a
considerable sum was saved by the foresight of Clive; but
it was still impossible to realise in full the amounts promised
to the Company and its servants, to whom the treasury
of the new government was now heavily mortgaged.
Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Clive, has aptly sum-
marised the process that now developed from the financial
indebtedness and military dependence which henceforward
made the rulers of Bengal the helpless vassals of the British
merchants :
“The servants of the Company,” writes Macaulay,
“obtained — not for their employers but for themselves —
a monopoly of almost the whole internal trade. They
forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap . . .
Every servant of a British factor was armed with all the
power of his master, and his master was armed with all
the power of the Company. Enormous fortunes were
thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty
millions of human beings were reduced to the last
extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed
to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like
this.” 24 7
These eighteenth century adventurers make a fascinating
study for those who would follow the course of empire from
the buccaneer to the missionary. The ships in which they
sailed from 1748 to 1772 — the famous “East India Men”
were mostly of one size, 499 tons, for the very simple
reason that all craft of 500 tons and over were compelled,
by law to carry a chaplain ! 25 The merchants were conscious
neither of a civilising mission nor of a sacred trust. They
had come to make money, and they made it.
The result of these exploits was swiftly experienced, in
England, where a corrupt political system now became a
hunting-ground of those who had acquired their fortunes
abroad. Among them were the “nabobs” (as these nouveaux
riches of the East were called) who returned to England and
bought up the “rotten boroughs” with the treasure of
India.
Hence it came about that, only ten years after the battle
of Plassey, Lord Chesterfield, having in vain offered £2,500
qa THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
for a seat in Parliament which he desired for his son, wrote
to inform him that
“there was no such thing as a borough to be had now,
for that the rich East and West Indians had secured them
all at the rate of £3,000 at least, but many at £4,000, and
two or three that he knew at £5,000.” 2 6
The effect on the industrial life of Britain was no less
drastic. “Very soon after Plassey,” writes Mr. Brook
Adams, “the Bengal plunder began to arrive in London,
and the effect appears to have been instantaneous, for all
authorities agree that the 'industrial revolution, the event
which has divided the nineteenth century from all ante-
cedent time, began with the year 1760. . . . Possibly
since the world began no investment has ever yielded
the profit reaped from the Indian plundei, because
for nearly fifty years Great Britain stood without a
competitor.” 27
In later chapters we shall follow further the political
and economic consequences in Britain of the conquest of
India by the East India Company. So far the process had
only begun. Clive appears to have attempted to check
the rapacity of his subordinates to some extent, but (as
Thompson and Garratt make clear in their Rise and Fulfil-
ment of British Rule ) :
“Clive’s enormous greed provided an example against
which his severity towards others . . . was entirely
ineffective. For the monstrous financial immorality of
English conduct in India for many a year after this, Clive
was largely responsible.” 28
The same authorities have recorded that “a gold-lust
unequalled since the hysteria that took hold of the Spaniards
of Cortes’ and Pizarro’s age filled the English mind. Bengal,
in particular, was not to know peace again until it had been
bled white.” But it was the great eighteenth century states-
man Edmund Burke, who, in one of his most memorable
speeches, summed up in these words the conquest of Bengal,
and the consequences to its inhabitants:
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE 25
“The Asiatic conquerors very soon abated of their
ferocity, because they made the conquered country their
own. They rose or fell with the rise and fall of the terri-
tory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes
of their posterity; the children there beheld the monu-
ments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast;
and it is the normal wish of all that their lot should not
be cast in bad land. Poverty, sterility, and desolation
are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man, and there
are very few who can bear to grow old among the curses
of a whole people. If their passion or avarice drove the
Tartar lords to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time
enough, even in the short life of man, to bring round the
ill effects of the abuse of power upon the power itself.
If hoards were made by violence and tyranny, they were
still domestic hoards, and domestic profusion, or the rapine
of a more powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to
the people. With many disorders, and with few political
checks upon power, nature had still fair play, the sources
of acquisition were not dried up, and therefore the trade,
the manufactures, and the commerce of the country
flourished. Even avarice and usury itself operated both
for the preservation and the employment of national
wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy
interest, but then they augmented the fund from which
they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly
bought, but they were sure, and the general stock of the
community grew by the general effect.
“But under the English Government all this order is
reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous, but it
* is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity,
but it is our friendship. Our conquest there, after twenty
years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives
scarcely know what it is to see the grey head of an English-
man; young men, boys almost, govern there, without
society, and without sympathy with the natives. . They
have no more social habits with the people than if they
still resided in England ; nor, indeed, any species of inter-
course but that which is necessary to making a sudden
fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated
with all the avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of
youth, they roll in one after another; wave after wave,
and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an
26
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of
prey and passage^ with appetites continually renewing
for a food that is continually wasting. Every rupee
of profit made by an Englishman is lost for ever to
India .” 29
Such was the situation in Bengal, at the mercy of these
birds of prey and passage ” who over-ran the country after
the battle of Plassey. Lord Clive (as he had become in
reward for his services) on his arrival in India for the third
time in 1765 himself denounced the corruption of which he
was the father. “Alas,” he said, “how is the English name
sunk ! I could not avoid paying the tribute of a few tears to
the departed and lost fame of the British nation — irre-
vocably so, I fear .” 30 Nothing less, however, could be
expected from the rule of a Company whose governing
body exhibited, according to Macaulay “all the trickery
and corruption of a Grampound election.” Profit and power
were the natural objects of its shareholders; and among
them Clive himself “laid out a hundred thousand pounds
in the purchase of stock, which he then divided among
nominal proprietors . . . whom he brought down in his
train to every discussion and every ballot .” 31 Empire-
building had begun in earnest.
NOTES
1 Quoted in Gage’s New Survey of the West Indies (1648).
2 The Company paid £10 per annum to the English Crown by way
of rent for Bombay.
3 Essay on Clive , by Lord Macaulay.
? tt .°^ s ^ rvations on the Manners and Arts of the Africans and
Asiatics in a paper read to the Royal Society of Agriculture at Lyons
O764) and that of Paris (1766) by Monsieur Poivre, Intendant of the
Isles de France et Bourbon, and former envoy to the King of Cochin-
China. The quotation is from a summary of this paper given in the
Court Miscellany for June, 1769.
5 JawaharlaI Nehru, referring to these risings in his Glimpses of
World History , quotes a Mughal noble who called those in revolt “a
gang of bloody miserable rebels, goldsmiths, carpenters, sweepers,
tanners, and other ignoble beings.”
8 The early campaigns took place in the South of India, where a
French empire was built up and destroyed within a few years, between
1744 and 1763.
27
BIRDS OF PREY AND PASSAGE
T Cambridge Shorter History of India 3 p. 548.
•Mill, Vol III, p. 117. C
• Mill, Vol III, p. 1 17.
Macaulay, who does not share Mill’s view, unconsciously confirms
his comment by remarking that the English were confined in “the
prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the
Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor that dungeon would,
in such a climate, have been too close and narrow.” ( Essay on Clive,)
10 Mill, Vol III, p. 117. First Report, Appendix No. XI.
11 Mill, Vol III, p. 1 18. Wilson’s footnote to 5th Edition
11 Mill, Vol III, p. 1 18.
13 Cambridge Shorter History , p. 548.
Professor Thompson, in his History of India , accepts the historicity
of the incident, but describes it as “the same kind of stupid brutality
that our own record contains in the asphyxiation of over eighty Moplah
prisoners in railway vans in 1921.”
14 Siyar Mutakharin, I, 759.
1 1 Mill, Vol III, p. 125.
14 Mill, Vol III, p. 126.
17 Mill, Vol III, p. 127 (footnote).
18 Quoted by Mill, Vol III, p. 129.
14 Mill, Vol III, p. 130.
In addition to this 280,000 rupees, as a member of the Committee,
Clive also received 200,000 as Commander-in-Chief and 1,600,000
as a private donation. The sum total came to over £200,000 at
the current rate of exchange. (Mill, Vol III, p. 257.) Two years later
Clive received an estate valued at £30,000 per annum. (See Thompson’s
History of India,) Clive nevertheless expressed himself “Surprised at
his own moderation.”
* # V^ e * corru P llon the Bengal Court was by no means phenomenal
* I* 1 the eighteenth century. Sir Robert Walpole, who died in 1745,
is credited with having said of the British Parliament: “I know the
price of every man in this House, except three.” (Latham’s Famous
Sayings and their Origin.)
11 Quoted by Mill, Vol III, p. 133 (footnote).
31 The story of Omichand is given in some detail by Mill (Vol III,
PP- 135*6) with a long footnote by Mr. Wilson, somewhat qualifying
his conclusions. Clive, according to Mill, was a man “to whom decep-
tion, when it suited his purpose, never cost a pang.”
Clive, writes Macaulay of this episode, “was not a man to do
anything by halves. We almost blush to write it. He forged Admiral
Watson’s name,” (Essay on Clive.)
14 Macaulay, Essay on Clive.
18 The Old East India Men , by E. Keble Chatterton, Lieut. R.N.V.R.
* Com P an y> however, employed chaplains at its factories. One
is believed to have composed the prayer given at the beginning of this
book.
14 Letters to his Son (December 19th, 1767) by Lord Chesterfield.
Quoted by Leonard Woolf in After the Deluge , p. 96.
28 the white sahibs in india
17 The Law of Civilisation and Decay > by Brook Adams.
Marx has some interesting comments on this early plunder in Capital
(p. 834 in the Everyman edition).
3S Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, by Edward Thompson
and G. T. Garrett.
14 From Burke’s speech on Fox’s East India Bill (1783). Quoted
by Dutt in the Economic History of India, Vol I, pp. 49-50.
The comment has sometimes been made that Burke had never
been in India and that consequently he spoke in ignorance. This
criticism was completely answered by Macaulay in his Essay on Warren
Hastings , where he points out that Burke “had studied the history, the
laws and the usages of the East with an industry such as is seldom found
united to so much genius and so much sensibility.” Readers of Macaulay
will remember the purple passage which follows and elaborates this
statement.
* 0 Quoted by Macaulay in his Essay on Clive,
81 Macaulay, Essay on Clive.
CHAPTER III
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
“I WAS not looking at thy private apartments, or at thy
queen’s. I was looking in the direction of the Europeans
who are coming from beyond the seas to tear down thy
curtains and destroy thine empire.”
Such had been the prophetic reply of Tegh Bahadur,
ninth guru of the Sikhs, when he was accused of staring
from his prison window in Delhi toward the harem of
the Great Mughal. The prophecy was now reaching its
fulfilment, the first step towards which was the consoli-
dation of the Company’s power in Bengal.
From the ruler of Bengal the British extracted a con-
cession freeing them from all the inland revenues that were
payable on the conveyance of goods. Nominally, this
exemption applied only to the property of the Company,
but in practice it was claimed by the servants of the Com-
pany, who were doing a considerable trade on their own
account. The revenue duties, therefore, acted in the
manner of a tariff against Indian commerce; Indian trade
declined while the Company and its servants made
fortunes, 1
Made arrogant by their military successes the British
rapidly extended their operations. Complaint or defiance
was met by disastrous reprisals, and gave them an excuse
to demand further concessions. Their principal purchase
in India was originally cloth, which they sold in England ;
for this was before the decay of the Indian cotton industry,
and some years before the rise of the cloth trade in Lanca-
shire. The Company’s servants forced the Indian weavers
to sign contracts agreeing to deliver a certain quantity of
cloth at a price fixed by the Company. An English merchant
named William Bolts, writing in 1772, describes the con-
dition of the Indian weavers as that of slaves. He tells
29
HO THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
how they were flogged if they refused to sign the contracts,
wiiich fixed prices between 15 per cent and 40 per cent
below market rates. 2
A climax was reached when Mir Kasim, the ruler of
Bengal, decided to abolish all inland duties to save the
I ndian merchants from ruin. The Company had demanded
exemption on its own account, and upheld the private
( I aims of its servants in which even the highest officials
were implicated. “They now” (writes James Mill) “insisted
that it” (the government of Bengal) “should impose duties
upon the goods of all other traders, and accused it as guilty
of a breach of peace towards the English nation because
it proposed to remit them.” 3 The quarrel ended in the
usual way — war, deposition of the prince and his replace-
ment by a puppet heavily indebted to the Company and
its servants for the cost of putting him on the throne.
In Britain the operations of the Company were by no
means regarded with universal favour. Writing in 1776
Adam Smith, “the Father of Political Economy,” passed
his judgment in these words upon the East India Company,
which had by then become the ruling power in Bengal: 4
“The Government of an exclusive company of mer-
chants is perhaps the worst of all governments for any
country whatever.
“ It is the interest of the East India Company considered
as sovereigns that the European goods which are carried
to their Indian Dominions should be sold there as cheaply
as possible; and that the Indian goods which are brought
from there should be sold here as dear as possible. But
the reverse of this is their interest as merchants. As
sovereigns their interest is exactly the same with that
of the country which they govern. As merchants their
interest is directly opposite to that interest.
“It is a very singular government in which every
member of the administration wishes to get out of the
country and consequently to have done with the govern-
ment as soon as he can and to whose interest the day
after he has left it and carried his whole fortune with
him, he is perfectly indifferent though the whole country
was swallowed by an earthquake.
“Frequently, a man of great, sometimes even a man
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE 31
of moderate, fortune is willing to give thirteen or fourteen
hundred pounds (the present price of a £1,000 share in
India stock) merely for the influence which he expects
to acquire by a vote in the Court of Proprietors. It
gives him a share, though not in the plunder, yet in the
appointment of the plunderers. ... A man of great or
even a man of moderate fortune provided he can enjoy
this influence for a few years and thereby get a certain
number of his friends appointed to employment in India,
frequently cares little about the dividend which he can
expect from so small a capital. About the prosperity
or ruin of the great empire in the government of which
that vote gives him a share he seldom cares at all. No
other governments ever were or from the nature of
things ever could be so perfectly indifferent about the
happiness or misery of their subjects, the improvement
or waste of their dominions, the glory or disgrace of their
administration, as from irresistible moral causes the greater
part of the Proprietors of such a mercantile company
are and necessarily must be.” 8
Between the years 1757 and 1765 the presents known to
have been received by British officers and other individual
Englishmen, exclusive of the Company’s profits, amounted
to £2,169,665, in addition to which a further sum of
j£ 3>77°)833 was obtained from various rulers upon a variety
of pretexts, as “restitutions” for alleged damages.® The
sums involved can only be fully appreciated in relation
both to the greater relative value of money in India than
its equivalent in the West, and the steady fall in monetary
values since 1765. 7
The Indian chronicler of the Siyar Mutakharin viewed
these contemporary events with considerable dismay.
Whilst he admired the military qualities of the new masters
of Bengal, he was appalled at the insatiability of their
appetites.
“They join,” he wrote, “the most resolute courage
to the most cautious prudence; nor have they their
equals in the art of ranging themselves in battle array
and in fighting order. If to so many military qualifica-
tions they knew how to join the arts of government; if
32 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
they showed a concern for the circumstances of the
husbandman and the gentleman, and exerted as much
ingenuity and solicitude in relieving and easing the
people of God as they do in whatever concerns their
military affairs, no nation in the world would be pre-
ferable to them, or prove worthier of command. But
such is the little regard which they show to the people of
these kingdoms, and such their apathy and indifference
for their welfare, that the people under their dominions
groan everywhere, and are reduced to poverty and
distress. O God ! come to the assistance of thine afflicted
servants, and deliver them from the oppressions they
suffer.” 8
Meanwhile the evidences of a new civilisation were
gradually finding expression in the Company’s settlements.
The tombs of the kings of Gour were plundered to make
the pavement of St. John’s Church at Calcutta, to which
the unfortunate Omichand unwittingly contributed. O mi-
dland had died in 1763, leaving by his will 30,000 rupees
to be bestowed for charitable uses in the way of his
religion, and appointing an Indian friend as his executor
and almoner. The Company’s officials, however, decided
to put the bequest to another purpose, and used it for the
building of a Christian Church. 9 The English narrator
who records this transaction in the Gentleman's Magazine
remarks that - the Company’s action “ transfers from him
(Omichand) to his executors the credit of the actual
appropriation of the sum of 30,000 rupees to this object.”
In Madras a similar progress was being registered. In
1769 a writer in the Court Miscellany tells us of the Madras
settlement that “there are two Churches, one for the
Protestants and the other for the Papists; as also a good
hospital, a tavern-hall and a prison for debtors. . . . The
Company have two Chaplains, who officiate by turns,
and have each ^roo a year, besides the advantages of trade;
they never attempt to make proselytes, but leave that to
the Popish missionaries. The salaries of the Company’s
writers are very small, but, if they have any fortune of their
own, they make it up by trade, which must generally be
the case, for they commonly grow rich.” 10
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
33
Whilst the Company’s servants grew prosperous, the
Company itself was also showing big profits for its share-
holders. One of the main sources of wealth for the Company
was its “Investment,” the nature of which was described
by a Select Committee of the House of Commons:
A certain portion of the revenues of Bengal has
been, for many years, set apart in the purchase of goods
for exportation to England, and this is called the Invest-
ment. The greatness of this Investment has been the
standard by which the merit of the Company’s principal
servants has been too generally estimated ; and this main
cause of the impoverishment of India has been generally
taken as a measure of its wealth and prosperity. Numer-
ous fleets of large ships, loaded with the most valuable
. ^ ^ 9 annually arriving in England
in a constant and increasing succession, imposed upon the
public eye, and naturally gave rise to an opinion of the
happy condition and growing opulence of a country
whose surplus productions occupied so vast a space in
the commercial world. This export from India seemed to
imply also a reciprocal supply, by which the trading
capital employed in those productions was continually
strengthened and enlarged. But the payment of a tribute,
and not a beneficial commerce, to that country, wore this
specious and delusive appearance.” 11
This^ Investment,” as the Parliamentary Committee
recognised, was simply a tribute in goods, which were
bought in India (with Indian money from the revenues of
Bengal) and sold in England for the profit of the Company.
Including this favourable balance of trade ” nearly one-
third of the nett revenue of Bengal was annually sent to
Britain, as is clearly shown in the Fourth Parliamentary-
Report of 1 773. 12 Over and beyond the cash dividend
and the Investment,” and leaving out of account the
private fortunes made by methods such as those which
Clive employed, Dutt estimates that there must have been
a considerable further drain in the savings of European
officials, which would have been sent out of the country.
There were also “the vast fortunes reared by those who had
excluded the country merchants from their legitimate
34 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
trades and industries,” while £100,000 per annum was
sent to subsidise the Company’s trade in China,
The Directors of the East India Company were by no
means entirely blind to the danger which was caused to
their own interests by the impoverishment of the country
from which they drew their wealth. Aware that the extor-
tions of their officials in their private interests must even-
tually compete with the claims of the Company, the
Directors made periodic (but mainly ineffectual) efforts
to check the activities of their servants. 13 But to the
appetite of the Company itself there were no limits.
“ There was something,” said Sheridan in one of his
most famous speeches, “in the first frame and constitution
of the Company which extended the sordid principles
of their origin over all their successive operations, con-
necting with their civil policy and even with their boldest
achievements the meanness of a pedlar and the pro-
fligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and military
line could be observed auctioneering ambassadors and
trading generals. . . . Thus it was they exhibited a
government which united the mock majesty of a bloody
sceptre and the little traffic of a merchant’s counting-
house, wielding a truncheon with one hand and picking
a pocket with the other.” 14
The actual collection of taxes in Bengal was done through
Indian officials corresponding to the “fermier” or tax-
farmer who was one of the worst curses of France before
the Revolution. These officials bought their rights from the
Company by auction. The highest bidder was responsible
to the Company for the sum at which he had contracted
and repaid himself with interest by means of the unlimited
powers of extortion conferred upon him. “Thus,” wrote
Harry Verelst, after his retirement from the Governorship
of Bengal, “numberless harpies were let loose to plunder,
whom the spoil of a miserable people enabled to complete
their first year’s payment.” 16
Famine was the inevitable result. In the year 1769, when
“India Stock” in London was fluctuating between 275
per cent and 277 per cent, 16 and in Bengal “the revenues
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
35
were never so closely collected before,” the spectre of
starvation was already descending upon the peasantry of
India. In the following year (1770) the Calcutta Council
of the East India Company recorded that “the famine which
has ensued, the mortality, the beggary, exceed all des-
cription. Above one-third of the inhabitants have perished
in the once plentiful province of Purneah, and in other
parts the misery is equal.” Their collections of revenue,
however, “ fell less short than they supposed they would.” 17
In 1771 the Company was even more fortunate: “Not-
withstanding the great severity of the late famine,” wrote
the Calcutta Council to the Court of Directors, “and the
great reduction of people thereby, some increase has been
made in the settlements both of the Bengal and the Behar
provinces for the present year.” 18 In the famine of 1770
about 10,000,000 people died (one third of the population
of Bengal, according to the official estimate). Throughout
this time the drain continued, and in 1772 Warren Hastings
was able to boast that “the net collections of 1771 exceeded
even those of 1768” — a fact which he attributed to the
revenue having been, “violently kept up to its former
standard.” In the words of Macaulay,
“Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings,
it cannot be denied that the financial results of his
policy did honour to his talents.” 18
The poet Cowper was among those in England who
watched the Company’s activities with some misgivings.
“The thieves at home must hang; but he that puts
Into his over-gorged and bloated purse
The wealth of Indian provinces, escapes.” 20
Such was Cowper’s reading of the situation. But a more
powerful adversary than the conscience of a humanitarian
was already in the field against the Company. The Com-
pany’s “Investment” was beginning to menace seriously
the manufacturing interests in England, and a trade which
had brought no profit to India was now regarded by many
as equally fatal to Great Britain.
36 THE .WHITE SAHlfeS IN INDIA
Macaulay quotes a seventeenth century Discourse
concerning the East India Trade , showing it to be unprofitable
to the Kingdom; also Pierce Butler's Tale, representing
the State of the Wool Case, or the East India Trade truly
stated . “Glamours such as these,” writes Macaulay,
“had, a few years before, extorted from Parliament the
Act which required that the dead should be wrapped
in woollen; and some sanguine clothiers hoped that the
legislators would, by excluding all Indian textures from
our ports, impose the same necessity on the living.” 21
At an even earlier date we read in Pepys’ Diary that:
“Sir Martin Noell told us the dispute between him,
as the farmer of the Additional Duty, and the East
India Company, whether calico be linen or no; which
he says it is, having been ever esteemed so: they say it
is made of cotton wool, and grows upon trees, not like
flax or hemp. But it was carried against the Company,
though they stand out against the verdict.” 22
The Company, however, had continued to maintain its
trade in these early years by the favour it purchased with
the Court. Josiah Child, who made an enormous fortune
from the Indian trade, bought from its proceeds a baronetcy
for himself and an aristocratic husband for his daughter.
As Governor of the Company he presented ten thousand
guineas to Charles II and the same amount to his successor,
who even became a stock-holder. “All who could help or
hurt at Court,” writes Macaulay, “ministers, mistresses,
priests, were kept in good humour by presents of shawls
and silks, birds’ nests and atar of roses, bulses of dia monds
and bags of guineas.”
The bread of Sir Josiah Child was not cast in vain upon
the waters; for when the Company’s monopoly was chal-
lenged it was upheld by no less an authority than Judge
Jeffreys, famous for his Bloody Assize. Crown Commissions
were carried by the captains of the Company’s ships, which
were allowed the use of the royal ensign. “The Company
on the other hand, distinguished itself among many servile
corporations by obsequious homage to the throne.”
By 1735 the competition of Indian trade must have been
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE 37
seriously felt in England, 23 for it was in that year that the
following lines appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine ;
“The silk-worms form the wardrobe’s gaudy pride;
How rich the vest which Indian looms provide;
Yet let me here the British Nymphs advise
To hide these foreign spoils from native eyes;
Lest rival artists, murmuring for employ,
With savage rage the envied work destroy.”
Already apprehensive of a rising discontent in England,
which was to reach its zenith with the impeachment of
Warren Hastings, the Company was now forced to reverse
its policy with regard to the trade in manufactured goods.
On March 17th, 1769, the Directors wrote to their repre-
sentatives in Bengal desiring that the production of raw silk
should be encouraged and that of manufactured silk dis-
couraged as much as possible. They also proposed that
the Company’s political power should be used in order to
force the silk- winders to work in the Company’s factories
and to prohibit them from working in their homes. 24
“This regulation,” the Directors informed the Parlia-
mentary Select Committee, “seems to have been
productive of very good effects, particularly in bringing
over the winders, who were formerly so employed, to
work in the factories. Should this practice (the winders
working in their own homes) through inattention have
been suffered to take place again, it will be proper
to put a stop to it, which may now be more effectually
done, by an absolute prohibition under severe penalties,
by the authority of the Government.” 2 6
The Select Committee in its report commented on the
Company’s policy in the following terms:
4
“This letter,” they said, “contains a perfect plan of
policy, both of compulsion and encouragement, which
must in a very considerable degree operate destructively
to the manufactures of Bengal. Its effects must be (so
far as it could operate without being eluded) to change
the whole face of that industrial country, in order to
render it a field for the produce of the crude materials
subservient to the manufactures of Great Britain.” 28
jjll THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
V This was soon to be the policy of the British Government
Itielf. As yet, however, “John Company” dominated the
Indian stage. The industrial magnates of Britain, who were
III the end to supersede the Company as the rulers of this
growing Empire, were still engaged in a struggle for wealth
wnd power at home. 27 And meanwhile the Company was
nip idly becoming the greatest political force in India.
* The methods by which the Company consolidated its
[lower and obtained its revenues were notorious for their
luvcrity. Professor Thompson tells us of Indian offenders
Agiunst the Company’s rule who were whipped to death
At Calcutta in the eighteenth century by a court
I lull could not execute an Englishman without a royal
Warrant from England. In the last quarter of the century,
A< cording to Thompson, mutilation remained “a common
punishment” and impalement was practised. 28 He quotes
n document of 1773 showing that in that year an Indian
WAS dragged to death by horses at the order of a British
( Council of Officers.
Indian middlemen and hirelings were not behind their
llliuters in the matter of oppression. At Dinajpur in Bengal
I lie I ndian agent of the Company flogged and tortured the
' ntllvators to extort revenue, till at last they deserted their
Villages. Bands of soldiers brought them back. They rebelled,
Hlltl the insurrection was put down with great severity. 29
Whrn it was stated at the impeachment of Hastings that
irvruuc defaulters were confined in open cages, it was
implied that confinement in such cages under the Indian
Mill was no torture. 20
< Ida 'ges against the Company’s servants of high-handed-
•WHW or embezzlement were refused a hearing or met with
•HViigc reprisals. 31 Tribute was exacted from neighbouring
»IWlr# not yet directly under the Company’s rule. By way of
N return, the Company would quarter an army on the State
In "protect” it. 32 The case of Benares affords an example,
[ft >pitc of protests from Philip Francis, 33 Hastings’ demands
U|Kin this state became ever more exorbitant. The State
tllftvulted, the Raja fled, and in 1781 the Company assumed
direct control. Three years later (according to James Mill)
Wirren Hastings “passed through the province of Benares,
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE 39
which in the time of Cheyte Sing and his father manifested
so great a degree of prosperity.” 34
Mill then gives Hastings’ own comments on the results
of the Company’s “corrupt and oppressive administration”
in his letter to the Council Board dated Lucknow, April
2nd, 1784.:
“From the confines of Buxar to Benares I was followed
and fatigued by the clamours of the discontented in-
habitants. ... I am sorry to add that from Buxar
to the opposite boundary I have seen nothing but traces
of complete devastation in every village.”
The fate of Oudh was similar. The Raja was made to
maintain a British army of which Philip Francis said that
it “had devoured his revenues and his country without
defending it.” Here again villages were deserted and the
peasants driven back by the Company’s troops. A Captain
Edwards who visited Oudh in 1774 reported it to be
“flourishing in manufactures, cultivation and commerce.”
Nine years later he found the country “forlorn and
desolate.” 35 Others confirmed his report, and Parlia-
mentary Reports have recorded their verdicts.
At the end of the eighteenth century the administration
of India continued to be (in Edward Thompson’s words)
“a mass of corruption ” in spite of higher salaries. 3 ® Hastings
was succeeded by Sir John Macpherson, whose adminis-
tration was described by his own successor (Cornwallis)
as. “a system of the dirtiest jobbing.” 37
The rule of the Company was challenged occasionally
by insurrection, and Mill has given us a graphic account
of the suppression, in 1764, of a mutiny among the Sepoy
troops. In this year a battalion of Sepoys deserted and
attempted to join the forces of an Indian ruler with whom
the Company was then at war. The battalion was over-
taken during the night, while the men were asleep, and all
were made prisoners. Twenty-four of the mutineers were
selected as examples, tried, and condemned to die in any
manner which the commander should direct.
“He ordered four of them to be immediately tied to
the guns, and blown away; when four grenadiers presented
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
themselves, and begged, as they had always had the post
nf honour, that they should first be allowed to suffer.
■ After the death of these four men, the European officers
of the battalions of Sepoys who were then in the field
nime to inform the Major that the Sepoys would not
duffer the execution of any more. He ordered the artillery
officers to load the field pieces with grape; and drew up
the Europeans, with the guns in their intervals. He then
desired the officers to return to the head of their battalions,
after which he commanded the battalions to ground
their arms, and assured them if a man attempted to move
that he would give orders to fire. Sixteen more of the
twenty-four men were then blown away; the remaining
lour were sent to another place of cantonment, and
executed in the same manner. Nothing is more singular
than that the same men, in whom it is endeavoured to
raise to the highest pitch the contempt of death, and who
may be depended upon for meeting it, without hesitation,
at the hand of the enemy, should yet tremble, and be
subdued, when threatened with it by their own officers.” 38
The impeachment of Warren Hastings represented to a
large section of contemporary British opinion rather a
protest against the Company itself and its methods than an
ill tack upon an individual. 3 9 It may well be argued that
in impeaching Hastings the enemies of the Company
detected the least venal of its officials and even based their
ruse against him on his less important misdemeanours.
Sheridan’s famous speech, which has already been quoted,
dhows that feeling was stirred at least as much by the general
principles of the Company’s administration as it was by
the particular faults of Hastings himself. Sheridan, quoting
IMtt, said that the Parliamentary Committee which investi-
gated the Company’s rule “had discovered in the adminis-
t ration of Mr. Hastings proceedings of strong injustice, of
grinding oppression and unprovoked severity.” It is perhaps
unfortunate that there existed no law by which the Company
rou Id have been tried for its extortions from the peasants
rather than Hastings for his doubtful dealings with Indian
i oyal families, and other relatively trivial offences.
Of equal interest is the fact that those who are to-day
judged “according to the standards of their time” did
the bloody sceptre 41
not in their own lives find those standards sufficiently low
to justify themselves. Hastings, on the contrary, con-
tinually defended his actions by citing some alleged Indian
practice or precedent. 4 0 Such was the nature of his defence
regarding the treatment of the Begums , or princesses, of
Oudh, which Sheridan has so vividly described in a speech
worth quoting at some length.
“Mr. Hastings,” said Sheridan in his memorable
indictment, “left Calcutta in 1781, and proceeded to
Lucknow, as he said himself, with two great objects in
mind: namely Benares and Oude. What was the nature
of these boasted resources? That he should plunder
one or both : the equitable alternative of a highwayman,
who in going forth in the evening hesitates which of his
resources to prefer — Bagshot or Hounslow. In such a
state of generous irresolution did Mr. Hastings proceed
to Benares and Oude.
“At Benares he failed in his pecuniary object. Then
and not till then, not on account of any ancient enmities
shown by the Begums, not in resentment, for any old
disturbances, but because he had failed in one place
and that he had but two in his prospect, did he conceive
the base expedient of plundering these, aged women.
. . . Inflamed by disappointment in his first project,
he hastened to the fortress of Chunar, to mediate the
more atrocious design of instigating a son against his
mother. ...
“At Chunar was that infamous treaty concerted with
the Nabob Vizier to despoil the princesses of Oude of
their hereditary possessions. 41 . . . No sooner was this
foundation of iniquity thus instantly established in
violation of the pledged faith and solemn guarantee of
the British government, no sooner had Mr. Hastings
determined to invade the substance of justice, than he
resolved to avail himself of the judicial forms, and
accordingly dispatched a messenger for the chief justice
of India to assist him. ... 42
“Mr. Hastings, with much art, proposed a question
involving an unsubstantiated fact. . . . ‘The Begums
being in actual rebellion, might not the Nabob confiscate
their property?’ ‘Most undoubtedly,* was the ready
answer of the friendly judge.
4 B THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
K.'TnH j“’ri Said Sh< ? ridan > “did not disdain
scud about India like an itinerant informer with a
pedlar s pack of garbled evidence. . . . With a generous
having authorised all future rapacity and sanctioned all
rill, ■? PP r"f°i a u thl j fnendl y judge proceeded on a
ircuit of health and ease; and while the Governor-
leZ ; Sa TT ed ‘ his solemn “sued his
orders to plunder the Begums of their treasure, Sir
> ijah pursued his progress, and passing through a wide
region of distress and misery, explored a country that
presented a speaking picture of hunger and naked-
• H.- t « f k
Thus, while the executive power in India was perverted
to the most disgraceful inhumanities, the judicial authority
a so became its close and confidential associate
Under such circumstances did Mr. Hastings complete
In , h tre ^ ty ,° f C , hunar ’ a treat y that might challenge
all the treaties that' ever subsisted for containing in the
smallest compass the most extensive treachery. Mr
£ d , n ° l condude that treaty till he had received
horn the Nabob a present, or rather, a bribe of £i 00,000.
• . . lour months afterwards, and not then, Mr
astings communicated the matter to the Company.
I Infortunately for himself, however, this tardy disclosure
was conveyed in words which betray his original mean-
ng, for with no common incaution he admits the
present was of a magnitude not to be concealed.’ ” 44
The weight of historical evidence is probably against
Nliendan s contention that “the British name and character
I K been dishonoured and rendered detested throughout
India by the malversations and crimes of the principal
.ervant of the East India Company.” Hastings was neither
, administrator nor was he the unique cause of the
hulled which the Company inspired. Sheridan was even
exaggerating his case when he said that Hastings had about
I "... nothing great but his crimes"; but he was essentially
..|',l.t in protesting against the view, which persists to the
I .resent day “that the guilt of Mr. Hastings was to be
;" ,ced hy hls successes, that fortunate events were a full
ti.u Complete set off against a system of oppression, cor-
l option, breach of faith, peculation, and treachery.”
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
43
A writer in the Court Miscellany of 1769 had already
foreseen the end of an empire built upon such foundations.
He gives us the imaginary remarks of two American
travellers in the year 1944. The travellers come to London
where they meet “in its depopulated streets a poor Briton,
who hearing us speak the English language and lamenting
the fate of the capital of his country, made up to us and
with a dejected countenance and great humility, said, I
conclude, gentlemen, you are come from the empire of
America.”
The Englishman shows the travellers “a field of turnips,
where stood the palace of Whitehall; as to St. James’s,
there is no trace of that left: it stood somewhere near the
pond.” The article, written before the American War of
Independence, tells prophetically how the American
Colonies revolted, “being treated more like aliens than
fellow subjects.” Finally, at the end of the day,
“although fatigued with this day’s journey, we ordered
our guide to conduct us to the India-house; that, says he,
has been destroyed these 150 years; for the blood they
shed in about 1760 in India called for vengeance, which
overtook them, and they are expelled all Asia; the
barbarity and inhumanity committed by them in the
Mogul’s dominions, about 180 years ago, history tells
you their own directors at that time acknowledged.” 46
British rule, however, was not destined to end so easily.
In April, 1769, a month after this anonymous writer had
foretold the downfall of the East India Company, a very
significant Act was passed in Parliament, embodying an
agreement between the Company and the British Govern-
ment. This Act was designed to silence the growing
criticism of the Company’s administration by making
the British Public co-partners in its exploits, for the most
important clause of the Act stipulated that the Company
should pay annually £400,000 of its profits into the British
Exchequer. 46
By the same Act the Company’s dividends were limited
to 12 per cent, any surplus profit beyond this figure to be
lent to the Government at an interest of 2 per cent. 4 7 The
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
mpany also agreed to export annually goods to the value
about £380,000.
The Act of 1769 was one of many steps by which the
I Crest of a chartered company was gradually becoming
urged in the general commercial and political life of this
untry; and as that process evolved we shall find that the
hole political weight of Great Britain was brought in-
Orrasingly to bear upon the development and maintenance
I’ an Empire upon which the national prosperity was being
Imilt. But there were some who saw in this process a
Hunger to the life of both countries, and perceived with mis-
givings this State participation in the spoils of India as well
HI the new power of corruption exercised in British political
life by those who had made their fortunes in the East.
Once more it is Gowper who voices this apprehension
Atvd in memorable lines foretells a doom less spectacular,
but no less terrible, than that which was prophesied in the
Court Miscellany :
“Hast thou, though suckled at fair freedom’s breast,
Exported slavery to the conquered East?
Pulled down the tyrants India served with dread,
And raised thyself, a greater in their stead?
Gone thither, armed and hungry, returned full,
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul,
A despot big with power obtained by wealth.
And that obtained by rapine and by stealth?
With Asiatic vices stored thy mind,
But left their virtues and thine own behind?
And having trucked thy soul, brought home the fee
To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee.” 48
Albeit the cloistered sage was one of many who saw the
evil, but could see no remedy. Steeped in the sentimental
affection which Warren Hastings had inspired in him from
early life, he even championed the instrument of an op-
pression which his sensitive spirit detested; and Hastings
remained to him the hero of his boyhood. “His habits,”
wrote Macaulay, “were such that he was unable to con-
ceive how far from the path of right even kind and noble
natures may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the lust
for dominion.”* 9
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
45
NOTES
1 Verelst, who succeeded Clive as Governor (1767-1770) has recorded
in his Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal (Vol I, p. 24) that : “A trade
was carried on without payment of duties, in the prosecution of which
infinite oppressions were committed. English agents or Gomastahs,
not contented with injuring the people, trampled on the authority
of government, binding and punishing the Nabob’s officers whenever
they presumed to interfere.” (Quoted by Mill, Vol III, p. 231.)
2 Considerations on Indian Affairs (London, 1772) pp. 191-4. Quoted
by Dutt, in his Economic History of India, Vol I, pp. 25 — 7* Bolts stated
that “the winders of raw silk . . . have been treated also with such
injustice that instances have been known of their cutting off their
thumbs to prevent their being forced to wind silk.”
3 Mill, Vol III, p. 237. Mill described the Company’s claim as
“one of the most remarkable instances upon record of the power of
interest to extinguish all sense of justice and even of shame.” This
opinion is strongly endorsed by Horace Wilson in his footnote.
4 In 1765 Clive obtained a charter from the Great Mughal whereby
the Company was formally recognised as the administrative authority
in Bengal.
6 The Wealth of Nations (Book IV, Chap. 7) by Adam Smith (1 77 6 -)
The Company, as Macaulay points out in his Essay on Warren Hastings ,
“never enjoined or applauded any crime,” but their excellent precepts
were “nullified by a demand for money.” As the Church dealt with
a heretic, so the Company’s Directors “delivered the victim over to
the executioners, with an earnest request that all possible tenderness
might be shown.” Hastings (and others after him) found it necessary,
therefore, “to neglect the sermons and to find the rupees.”
6 These figures, which were given in the House of Commons Com-
mittee’s Third Report (1773), p. 311, are quoted in greater detail by
Dutt in his Economic History, Vol. I, pp. 32-3.
7 Even in the present age a few pence per day constitutes the average
income of the Indian peasant. According to Vakil and Muranjan in
their Currency and Prices of India, the rupee fell between 1 88 1 and 1921
to a quarter of its value at the beginning of that period. To grasp these
figures one must therefore take into account not only the low standard of
living in India, but the higher value of money throughout the world
in the 18th century.
6 Siyar Mutakharin, Vol II, p. 101. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 22-3,
and by Macaulay in his Essay on Clive.
9 An account of this interesting and typical transaction is given in
the Gentleman's Magazine of March, 1 824. A further 30,000 rupees
was contributed by the Company (out of the Bengal revenues) for the
building of this church.
10 Court Miscellany, June, 1769.
11 Ninth* Report of 1783, p. 54. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 48-9.
Dutt quotes Harry Verelst’s comment on the “Investment”: “Whatever
sums had formerly been remitted to Delhi were amply reimbursed
by the returns made to the immense commerce of Bengal. . . . How
widely different from these are the present circumstances of the Nabob’s
46 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
dominions! . . . Each of the European Companies, by means of money
taken up in the country, have greatly enlarged their annual Invest-
ments, without adding a rupee to the riches of the province.” (View
oj the Rise of the English Government in Bengal , Appendix, p. 117.)
The Report of 1783 valued the “Investment” at nearly £1,200,000
per annum, and never less than a million. It pointed out that the
"Investment" was “forcibly kept up” even during the famine of 1770,
“which wasted Bengal in a manner dreadful beyond all example.”
* * Fourth Report, 1773, p. 535. Dutt (Vol I, p, 46) quotes an inter-
esting table of figures from this report, showing that the gross collection
of revenue in Bengal from May, 1765, to April, 1771, was about
£2 0,000,000. This yielded a net income of about £13,000,000 after
deducting various allowances, salaries and other costs of collection;
and of this £13,000,000, £4,000,000 was profit for the Company.
ia The House of Commons Committee’s Fourth Report (1773)
quotes a statement by the Directors of the Company that “We think
vast fortunes acquired in the inland trade have been obtained by a
scene of the most tyrannic and oppressive conduct that was ever known
in any age or country.” (Appendix p. 534. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 41.)
I * The extract is from the Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s speech on
the impeachment of Warren Hastings, made in the House on Feb. 7th,
1787, and described as “one of the most memorable in the annals of
Parliament” (Dictionary of National Biography: article on Sheridan).
( The Parliamentary History (XXV, 294) records that when he sat down
“the whole House — the members, peers, and strangers— involuntarily
joined in a tumult of applause, and adopted a mode of expressing their
approbation, new and irregular in that House, by loudly and repeatedly
clapping their hands,”
16 View of the Rise of the English Government in Bengal , p. 70. Quoted
by Dutt, Vol I, p. 44.
1 3 These are the limits given in the Stock Price Columns of the
Court Miscellany for the month of March, 1 769. Of all stocks listed they
are easily the highest, the second being Bank Stock, which does not
rise above 165 per cent.
17 India Office Records, quoted in Hunter’s Annals of Rural Bengal
(1868), p. 21.
The quotations given below regarding the famine of 1770 are from
the same source.
18 Professor Thompson in his History of India remarks that the
Company’s servants between 1760 and 1765 “became a band of
brigands.” This was in Bengal, but he adds: “Madras was equally
dishonest. . . . The scandalous corruption of Madras continued until
1801.” These remarks, however, do not refer to the official activities
of the Company, as described here, but only to unofficial plunder!
18 Macaulay’s Essay on Warren Hastings.
80 The Task t by William Cowper. (1785).
II History of England , (Chapter XVIII.)
** Feb. 27th, 1664.
18 This trade had grown up. in spite oflegislation— as, for example,
an Act of William III prohibiting the wearing of wrought silks and
printed or dyed, calicoes from India, Persia, or China, under penalty
of a £200 fine.
THE BLOODY SCEPTRE
47
** Dutt, Vol I, p. 45.
** Ninth Report of the Select Committee (1783), Appendix, p. 37.
Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 45.
48 Ninth Report, p. 64.
47 Sheridan in his speech on the Impeachment of Hastings mentions
those “who affected to ridicule the idea of prosecuting Mr. Hastings
... by asserting that parliament might be more usefully employed.”
48 Thompson’s History of India (pp. 54-5): “The criminal’s family,”
writes Thompson, “was broken up and its members sold as slaves,”
The inhuman penalties of eighteenth century English law seemed
peculiarly barbarous to the Indian mind, especially the death penalty
for petty larceny. Macaulay says of Nandakumar’s execution for
forgery that “it was in the highest degree shocking to all their notions”
(Essay on Warren Hastings ) .
** Dutt, Vol I, p. 62.
30 Dutt, Vol I, p. 76.
31 Dutt, Vol I, pp. 63, 64.
34 Dutt, Vol I, pp. 70-75.
33 Philip Francis, who was a member of the Governor’s Council at
Calcutta, steadily opposed Warren Hastings during his governorship.
He was the reputed author of the famous “Junius” letters.
33 Mill, Vol IV, p. 355.
35 Dutt, Vol I, p. 76. Sheridan in the speech quoted above cites
Hastings as having said of the British Army in Oudh that “they mani-
fested a rage for rapacity and peculation.”
** Thompson’s History of India , p. 56.
37 The same, p. 59,
38 Mill, Vol III, pp. 246-7.
38 Of this period in Indian history Macaulay writes in his Essay .
on Warren Hastings : “The business of a servant of the Company was
simply to wring out of the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand
pounds as speedily as possible, that he might return home before his
constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer’s daughter, to
buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give balls in St, James’s Square.”
Both aristocrats and radicals consequently disliked these “Nabobs.”
40 Sheridan, in his speech on the impeachment of Hastings, said that
“through the whole of his conduct he had alleged the principles of
Mahomedanism in mitigation of the severities he had sanctioned;
as if he meant to insinuate that there was something in Mahomedanism
which rendered it impious for a son not to plunder his mother.” This
was with reference to the robbery of the Begums of Oudh. A good
account of this whole episode will be found in Macaulay’s Essay on
Warren Hastings. Macaulay is severely outspoken regarding the torture
of the servants of the Begums and the scandalous connivance of the
Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, with Hastings.
41 The rulers of Oudh were theoretically viceroys of the Great
Mughal and they used the title of Vizir. In later years they assumed
the title of King.
The treaty contained several clauses, but was mainly concerned
with an agreement between Hastings and the “Nabob” to plunder
the princesses. Sheridan’s account of the transactions which followed
4 |{ the WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
.1 substantiated by Mill (Vol IV, p. 309 et seq.) Wilson in his notes to
tlir 5th edition does not dispute the major facts but finds innumerable
excuses for the principal actors.
4 * The Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, was a close friend of Hastings
who (on an earlier occasion) had done good service by sentencing to
• lr;Uh an Indian named Nandakumar. This Nandakumar was hanged
|i>r forgery whilst investigations were actually pending regarding
1 larges which he had brought against Hastings. Professor Thompson
>11 his History of India describes his execution as “a scandalous thing
mi many grounds and of doubtful legality.” He adds, however, that
"(hough it was naturally thought that Nandakumar’s real offence
was his daring to attack the Governor-General, and Hastings’ position
was enormously strengthened, Hastings himself has never been proved
In have had anything to do with the affair.” On the same incident
I hompson and Garratt (with Clive’s forgery in mind), comment that
l lie offence which had not barred an Englishman’s path to a peerage
was now to doom a Hindoo to the gallows.” (Rise and Fulfilment of
lh dish Rule in India.) Macaulay cites a letter of Hastings’ written in 1780
Ml which he refers to Impey as the man “to whose support he was at
miic tune indebted for tbe safety of bis fortune, honour and reputation.”
This apparently means the timely execution of Nandakumar.
4a Mr. H. H. Dodwell, in the Cambridge Shorter History of India , is at
pains to excuse Hastings, but admits that “the Begums were treated
with severity, although the degree of this ill-treatment was greatly
exaggerated by Hastings’ enemies, and in their case (i.e. the plundering
mI the princesses) the matter was darkened by something like a breach
of faith.” (p. 5 g 4 )
44 The “consideration” for which this bribe was given, says Sheridan,
was “no less than the withdrawing from Oude not only all the English
ntlemen in official situations, but the whole also of the English army:
and that too at the very moment when he himself (Hastings) had
»tnted the whole country of Oude to be in open revolt and rebellion.
• * The Nabob, indeed, considered this as essential to his deliverance,
m«l his observation on the circumstance was curious. ‘For though
Major Palmer,’ said he, ‘has not yet asked anything, I observe it is the
1 us tom of the English gentlemen constantly to ask for something from
me before they go. This imputation on the English Mr. Hastings was
must ready, most rejoiced to countenance as a screen and shelter for
his own abandoned profligacy. . . . ‘Go,’ he said to the English gentle-
men » ‘g°> y° u oppressive rascals, go from this worthy, unhappy man
whom you have plundered* . * * You have taken advantage of his
in mmulated distresses, but please God he shall in future be at rest, for
I have promised him he shall never see the face of an Englishman
ngiiin.’*’
44 Court Miscellany , March, 1769.
44 Act of George III. (Quoted by Mill, Vol III, p. 337.)
1 7 There was, however, a first charge on surplus profits to pay off
(hr contract debts of the Company and reduce the banded debt to a
Irvel of equality with the loans outstanding to the Government. The
ilgmficance of this will be apparent in the next chapter.
14 Lines from Expostulation,” by William Gowper. (1782)
4 * Macaulay’s Essay on Warren Hastings.
CHAPTER IV
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY
While the proceedings described in the last chapter were
typical of Bengal in the latter ha] f of the eighteenth century,
the record of the Company’s activities in Madras is very
similar. This can be gathered from the evidence given
before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in
1782. Dutt quotes from the Ninth Report of this Com-
mittee, showing that under the Company’s exactions,
official and unofficial, both agriculture and internal trade
had seriously declined. 1 The chief ally of the Company
here was the Nawab of the Karnatic, a puppet with whose
aid they waged successful war against the French. War
drove the Nawab into debt, the loans being advanced by
the Company’s servants. This meant increasing extortion
of revenue from the Nawab’s subjects; and when at length
all his efforts failed to meet his creditors’ demands, the .
Nawab handed over the entire revenue collection to the
British moneylenders. An unedifying controversy even
arose between the Company’s servants in Madras and its
directors in England as to who had first claim on these
spoils.
An expedient was soon resolved upon that satisfied the
Company’s servants and the Nawab. The neighbouring
State of Tanjore, described by the Court of Directors (in
a letter dated March 17th, 1769) as “the most fruitful
part of the country,” was an ally of the British. Never-
theless, in the same letter, the Company’s servants were
instructed to support the Nawab of the Karnatic in his
aggressive designs on this State. Two years later Tanjore
saved itself by a payment of £400,000; but this did not
preserve it from a second attack in 1 773> which placed
its revenues at the disposal of the Nawab — for the discharge
of his debts. 2 A terrible account of the devastation and
49
V the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
impoverishment that followed, given before the “Com-
imitce of Secrecy” in 1782, will be found in Dutt’s
Economic History . 3
With the huge fortunes they had accumulated in India
1 lie Company’s servants, as we have already noted, bought
up the Rotten Boroughs” of England and acquired influ-
ence in Parliament. 4 Paul Benfield, the most famous of
diem (who was employed by the Company at Madras),
lield no less than eight boroughs, 5 and his notoriety was
immortalised by Edmund Burke in a terrible onslaught
made in the House of Commons,
#
“Paul Benfield,” said Burke, “is the grand parlia-
mentary reformer. What region in the empire, what
city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in this
kingdom, is not full of his labours? In order to station
a steady phalanx for all future reforms, the public-
spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for the relief
of India, did not forget the poor rotten constitution of
his native country. For her he did not disdain to stoop
to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House,
to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures of anti-
quated merit, such as decorate, and may reproach, some
other Houses, but with real, solid, living patterns of true
modern virtue. Paul Benfield made, reckoning himself,
no fewer than eight members of the last Parliament.
What copious streams of pure blood must he not have
transfused into the veins of the present. , . .
“For your Minister, this worn-out veteran (Benfield’s
agent) submitted to enter into the dusty field of the
London contest; and you will remember that in the same
virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of public
office or counting-house, where the whole business of
the last general election was managed. It was openly
managed by the direct agent and attorney of Benfield.
It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian
interest. This was the golden cup of abominations . . ,
which so many of the people, so many of the nobles
of this land, had drained to the very dregs. Do you think
that no reckoning was to follow this lewd debauch?
That no payment was to be demanded for this riot of
public drunkenness and national prostitution?” 5
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 51
The Earl of Chatham was among those who viewed such
developments in English political life without enthusiasm.
Writing in 1770 he observed that “there has been an influx
of wealth into this country which has been attended with
many fatal consequences, because it has not been the regular,
natural produce of labour and industry. The riches of
Asia have been poured in upon us, and have brought
with them not only Asiatic luxury, but, I fear, Asiatic
principles of government. Without connections, without
any natural interest in the soil, the importers of foreign
gold have forced their way into Parliament by such a
torrent of private corruption as no hereditary fortune could
resist.” 7
This is the protest of aristocracy against the parvenu .*
But the main issue of the struggle that was now beginning
in England was not a dispute between the “Nabobs” and
the aristocrats. It was the inevitable conflict, which we
have already observed, between the interests of the Com-
pany and those of the rising industries of Northern England.
In this struggle there was ranged upon one side all the
influence that money could buy, either in the electoral
constituencies of Britain, or in Parliament itself. But on
the other side was a force even younger and more virile
than that of the merchant princes — the force of the industrial
revolution, itself to some extent a product of the first influx
of gold from the East.
The annual import of Indian calicoes alone to Great
-Britain had reached the figure of £1 60,000 as early as ■
1677 — a considerable amount in those days — and this in
spite of a 25 per cent duty under the Tonnage and Poundage
Act. Lecky and Macaulay have both recorded the fashion
in these goods during the latter half of the seventeenth
century, and the outcry of the English merchants.® In
1700, as we have noted, an Act was passed prohibiting the
importation of printed calicoes from India.
Cloth imports from India, other than printed calicoes,
continued, however, to increase; and the opposing tariffs
rose in proportion. 10 Between 1797 and 1813 the duty on
white calicoes imported into England rose steadily from
18 per cent to 71 per cent, while the duty on muslins and
f |2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
nankeens rose from 19 per cent to 27 per cent. From the
year 1813 the tariffs against India dropped, but by then the
I'-ritish industries were well established, and imports from
India were rapidly declining. 11
It was now the turn of the Indian manufacturers to
protect themselves. But here Britain intervened. Indian
import duties were reduced to <z\ per cent ad valorem, and
1 lie Lancashire trade grew rapidly. At the same time the
duties on Indian cloth consumed in India stood in some
< uscs at 17 per cent, according to evidence given before
4 Select Committee of Parliament in 1843. 1 2 At the expense
<>l the Indian taxpayer a museum was even instituted in
London in which Indian products were offered for the
inspection of the English manfacturer, and a report on
“The Textile Manufacture and Costumes of India” was
brought out by the Government. Of this last enterprise
an English officer wrote in the Pioneer: “Under force of
1 1 impulsion the Indian workman had to divulge the manner
nf his bleaching and other trade secrets to Manchester.
. . . This may be political economy, but it is marvellously
like something else.” 13 An oppressive tax on Indian spin-
ning wheels completed the process of extermination. 14
The more recent record of the British tariff policy with
regard to India will be considered later; but we have already
m our survey passed into a new era of Indian history, and
must retrace our steps in order to examine the causes and
effects of its principal tendencies.
Agitation against the Company’s monopoly of the
Indian trade had resulted in 1793 in a concession of 3,000
ums of shipping a year to companies in Lancashire and
Scotland. This process of throwing open the Indian trade
.ontinued until 1833, when the opponents of the Company
succeeded in making the renewal of its charter conditional
upon its complete abandonment of trade, which was made
“free.” 16 The Company continued to act as an adminis-
trative body until 1858.
As the interests of British capitalists became more and
more linked up with Indian affairs, the Parliament which
represented them demanded an ever increasing share in
* lie control of India’s administration. 16 The inevitable
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 53
end of this was the abolition of the Company, since govern-
ment for profit was now its sole function; and for this the
political machinery of the State was better fitted. For
another quarter of a century “John Company” continued
to administer India at 1 o per cent on its capital, dividends
having been limited to this percentage in 1833 by the
jealousy of other British interests. 17 Then in 1858 the
administration passed formally to the Crown. Dividends
were paid from the Indian revenues for another sixteen
years, until the redemption of the Company’s “stock”
in 1874, also at the cost of the Indian tax-payer, who at
that time was made to purchase his country from the
Company for the sum of £12,000,000 in order to present
it to the British Government. 18
The sum was raised by loan and added to the Indian
“national” debt, which already included a sum of over
£69,000,000 representing the war debts of the East India
Company, taken over with the rest of its assets and debits
in 1858.
The economic force that was slowly ousting the Company
from its position was that of the middle-class manufacturers
in Britain, whose use for an empire was very different
from that of the interests which predominated in the .
eighteenth century. Their first demand was for markets,
and the European countries which in the early years of
the Industrial Revolution had supplied these markets were
by 1815 exhausted by the Napoleonic wars. Following
the post-war slump on the Continent came the rise of
Continental industries in competition with those of Britain;
and the manufacturer tended to turn increasingly to the
colonial countries for the sale of his goods.
In addition to the problem of markets there was that of
raw materials, as England became increasingly an indus-
trial country; 19 whilst for the same reason there was a
growing tendency to import the food-stuffs upon which the
industrial population lived. The interest of the British
manufacturing class in the Indian Empire therefore becomes
sharply defined in the nineteenth century: they required
an unfettered market for their goods, a supply of cheap
food to keep down, the cost of living (and therefore of
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
ItlMiir) in iheir own country, and an actual or potential
imply of raw materials for their factories. It was the rise
of this class to power and their growing influence in Indian
ill. ms which was responsible for the tariff policy which
hi have already surveyed.
|‘he history of Indian ship-building is very similar to
i hiii of Indian cloth. We have already noted that, an
imh pendent Indian shipping industry with a foreign trade
I i is own ended at about the time when the European
lu I venturers first came to the country. 20 But a ship-building
industry had long survived it, and for generations Indian
shipyards supplied the Company with the famous “East
India Men." 21 Thus in 1670 the Company’s factor at
htllnsore wrote to the Court of Directors in London: 22
“Many English merchants, and others have their
diips and vessels yearly built. Here is the best and well
I* 1 own timber, in sufficient plenty, the best iron upon the
1 oast ; any sort of iron work is here ingeniously performed
by the natives, as spikes, bolts, anchors and the like. 23
Very expert master builders there are several here; they
I mild very well and launch with as much discretion as
1 have seen in any part of the world. They have an
excellent way of making shrouds, stays, and any other
rigging for the ships."
This industry, however, was also doomed, for we read
how “the arrival in the Port of London of Indian produce
lu Indian-built ships created a sensation among the mono-
polists which could not have been exceeded if a hostile
licet had appeared in the Thames. The ship-builders of
die Port of London took the lead in raising the cry of
t i 1 ,irm. . . . An obliging Government saw to it that the
I udian industry perished." 21 Under Governmental pressure
the Court of Directors forbade the use of Indian ships for
1 he London trade — a blow so fatal in its effects that to this
(Liy the vast bulk of India’s foreign trade is in the hands
of British Companies. 26 The reason given by the East
India Company was that —
“The native sailors of India are on their arrival here
led into scenes which soon divest them of the respect
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 55
and awe they had entertained in India for the European
character."
The destruction of Indian industries followed automati-
cally from the economic policies which dominated nine-
teenth century Britain. There is a speech which is said
to have been made by the late Lord Brentford, before his
elevation to the peerage, in which his lordship brought
out this point very clearly, whilst at the same time dis-
playing a very common ignorance of events prior to the
nineteenth century. 20
“We did not,” he said, “conquer India for the benefit
of the Indians. I know that it is said at missionary
meetings that we have conquered India to raise the level
of the Indians. That is cant. We conquered India as
an outlet for the goods of Great Britain. We conquered
India by the sword, and by the sword we shall hold it. 27
“I am interested in missionary work in India and
have done much work of that kind, but I am not such a
hypocrite as to say that we hold India for the Indians.
We hold it as the finest outlet for British goods in general,
and for Lancashire goods in. particular."
Equally expressive is the language of the British historian,,
H. H. Wilson, who said that the British manufacturer “em-
ployed the arm of political injustice to keep down and
ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not
have contended on equal terms.” 28
As a result of this policy British exports of manufactured
goods increased yearly, while Indian industries decayed.
No better example can lie cited than that of cotton goods.
The export of these goods from Britain to ports East of
the Cape of Good Hope (and mainly to India) rose from
£156 in 1794 to £108,824 in 1813, and continued to
increase throughout the rest of the century. 29
The consequent dislocation of Indian economic life can
only be comprehended in relation to the peculiar balance
of Indian village economy. This has always been main-
tained by a mixture of agriculture and peasant industries,
the latter occupation supplementing the scanty income of
the peasant during the annual period of four months’
',<> THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
idleness caused by the seasonal droughts. Of these peasant
industries, hand-spinning lias been historically the principal
wie, for which the Indian looms maintained a stable
demand; and the decline of both weaving and spinning
ill the Indian villages has left most of the peasants even
m the present day without any supplementary industry
during four months of enforced unemployment. 30
How persistent were the endeavours of the British
Government to find Indian markets for British manufactures
lias been shown by Dutt in his Economic History of British
India . 31 In 1813 Warren Hastings was asked by a Com-
mittee of the House of Lords: “Are you able to speak to
the probability of a demand for European commodities
by the population of India?” He replied that “The poor
of India may be said to have no wants. Their wants are
confined to their dwellings, to their food, and to a scanty
portion of clothing, all of which they can have from the
soil that they tread upon.” 32
Sir John Malcolm was asked the same question about
Northern India, and replied that the people there were
“not likely to become consumers of European articles,
because they do not possess the means to purchase them,
oven if, from their simple habits of life and attire, they
required them.” 33
Others examined by the Committee included Sir Thomas
Munro, who gave as a reason against any extension in the
sale of British manufactured goods: “the religious and civil
habits of the natives, and more than anything else, I am
afraid, the excellence of their own manufactures.” 34
To people of determination, however, obstacles are things
to be overcome; and we have already seen with what
drastic measures the rising industrial forces in Britain were
closing their own markets to India and forcing open the
Indian market to their goods. “The European,” Warren
Hastings had stated in evidence, “is quite a different
character in India; the name of an Englishman is both
his protection and a sanction for offences which he would
not dare to commit at home.” 36 This was spoken of indi-
viduals; but the sanction referred to was enjoyed by the
Company as an institution; 1813 marks the date of its
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 57
extension on an even broader scale by the final abolition
of the Company’s trading monopoly.
In the Parliamentary debates of that year “professions
of a concern for the inhabitants of India were, it is true, not
unsparingly uttered, but it would be difficult to show that
the majority of the party who engaged in the discussion
were solely instigated by a disinterested regard for the
welfare of the Indian subjects of the Crown. . , . The
merchants and manufacturers of the United Kingdom
avowedly looked only to their own profits. 36 Even while
Parliament was hearing the evidence Bombay was stricken
by famine. 37 Nearly fifty years later the intimate con-
nection between such famines and the destruction of
Indian industries was officially recognised in a government
report :
“ At the root of much of the poverty of the people of
India,” says this report, “and of the risks to which they
are exposed in seasons of scarcity, lies the unfortunate
circumstance that agriculture forms the sole occupation
of the masses of the population.” 38
Against this new policy there were the usual ineffective
protests. Wordsworth had already observed at the begin-
ning of the century that:
“If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa
Aught good were destined, thou wouldst stand between.
England! All nations in this charge agree.” 39
At least one historian was to share his view where Indian
industries were concerned. Referring to the enquiry ol
1813 Mr. Wilson writes:
“It was stated in evidence that the cotton and silk
goods of India up to the period could be soltl for a profit
in the British market at a price from 50 per cent to 60 per
cent lower than those fabricated in England. It conse-
quently became necessary to protect the latter by duties of
70 per cent and 80 per cent on their value or by positive
prohibition. Had this not been the case, had not the
prohibitory duties and decrees existed, the mills of
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
I itislcy and Manchester would have been stopped in
lli< it outset, and could scarcely have been again set in
million, even by the power of steam. They were created
I *y the sacrifice of the Indian manufacture. Had India
hif'n independent, she would have retaliated, would
have imposed prohibitive duties upon British goods, and
would thus have preserved her own productive industry
(tom annihilation." 40
In the eighteenth century the weaving industry in
1,1 ogal had already received a mortal blow as an inde-
hi'iidcnt and indigenous source of wealth. Sir Thomas
iimro stated in evidence that the Company’s servants
h 1,1 placed weavers under guard until they agreed to supply
I hr ( lompany only. If the weaver was slow with his deliveries,
- peon was placed over him to encourage more haste by
l In use of a rattan cane, and the weaver was fined in order
*' 1 piovide the cost ot his invigilator. 41 Evidence was
I 'induced that the weavers of whole villages had been held
In slavery by the Company in this manner, and the Com-
p my’s own regulations of 1793 made it clear that such was
u least their intention. The new influences which domin-
iinl British policy in India during the nineteenth century
were now rapidly completing the destruction of an industry
which had already, in many parts of the country, been
if prived of its independence and had ceased to be a source
hI wealth to the native population.
Meanwhile India’s internal trade was threatened by a
system of inland duties that imperilled its very existence.
I< (Terence has already been made to duties on Indian
1 loth sold in India amounting to a tariff far in excess of
I he per cent revenue duty on cloth from Lancashire.
( M the inland duties Lord Ellenborough wrote in 1835:
“While the cotton manufactures of England are •
imported into India on payment of a duty of 2 1 per cent,
the cotton manufactures of India are subjected to a duty
on the raw material of 5 per cent, to a further duty on
yarn of 7! per cent, to an additional duty on the manu-
factured article of 2I per cent, and finally to another
duty of 2 1 per cent if the cloth should be dyed after the
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 59
Rowana (pass) has been taken out for it as white cloth.
Thus altogether the cotton goods of India (consumed
in India) pay 17^ per cent. ... 1 "
“The raw hide pays 5 per cent. On being manu-
factured into leather it pays 5 per cent more; and when
the leather is made into boots and shoes, a further duty
is imposed of 5 per cent. Thus, in all, there is a duty
of 15 percent (on Indian leather goods used in India).
* ■ *
“In what manner do we continue to treat our own
sugar? On being imported into a town it pays 5 per
cent in customs, and 5 per cent in town duty, and when
manufactured it pays on exportation from the same
town 5 per cent more, in all 15 per cent (on Indian
sugar used in India).
“No less than 235 separate articles are subjected to
Inland Duties. The tariff includes almost everything of
personal or domestic use, and its operation, combined
with the system of search, is of the most vexatious and
offensive character, without materially benefiting the
revenue. The power of search, if really exercised by every
Custom-house officer, would put a stop to internal trade
by the delay it would necessarily occasion. It is not
exercised except for the purpose of extortion. . . .
“The effect upon the national morals is yet more .
serious than the effect upon national wealth. Every
merchant, every manufacturer, and every traveller, is,
as it were, compelled, for the security of his property
or the protection of his personal comfort, and not unfre-
quently for that of the feelings of the females of his family,
to enter into unlawful collusion with the officers of
Government. It is a system which demoralises our own
people, and which appears to excite the aversion of all
the foreign traders of Asia. . . , 5 ’ 42
As explained in the previous chapter, these inland
duties had existed under the Mohammedan rulers, and in.
Bengal one of the first concessions obtained by the Com-
pany from the native government had been immunity
from such taxation. The attempt of the Subahdar, Mir
Kasim, to abolish all inland duties (in order to save the
I 4
Indian merchants from complete ruin by such preferential
treatment afforded to the Company and its servants) had
on THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
)<jd to his downfall and (within a few years) to the assump-
tion of direct rule by the British. 43 Under their adminis-
tration the inland duties became far more oppressive than
they had been under the Mohammedan rulers, as Sir
( lharles Trevelyan demonstrated in a report prepared
officially by request of the Governor-General. 44 The duties
were also made the subject of an attack by Holt Mackenzie,
•it that time Territorial Secretary, in a memorandum
dated June 23rd, 1825: 45
“Hitherto,” wrote Mackenzie, “the attention of the
authorities at home, and of the mercantile body generally
in England, would appear to have been directed chiefly
to the object of finding a market for the manufactures of
the United Kingdom. They had consequently looked
more to the import than to the export trade of India.
The duties prescribed by Regulation IX of 1810 have
accordingly taken ofl a great number of articles sent
from England Hither; while of the exports, only indigo,
cotton, wool and hemp have been made free, and this
more with a view, I apprehend, to English than to
Indian objects. . . . ” 4 «
Pile same authonty has recorded, however, the success
<>f the new policy in creating an Indian market for British
products. Judging from Calcutta,” he replied (in answer
to a question posed by a House of Commons Committee),
there has been, I think, a marked tendency among the
natives to indulge in English luxuries; they have well-
furnished houses, many wear watches, they are fond of
carriages and are understood to drink wines.” 47 But
while the Indian middle-class in the European settlements
could afford to flatter their new masters with such profit-
able imitation, the condition of the villagers grew steadily
worse.
“Have any steps been taken in England or in India,”
wrote Montgomery Martin in 1838, “to benefit the
■sufferers by our rapacity and selfishness? None! On
the contrary, we have done everything possible to im-
poverish still further the miserable beings subject to the
cruel selfishness of English commerce. . . . Under
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 6l
the pretence of Free Trade, England has compelled the
Hindus to receive the products of the steam looms of
Lancashire, Yorkshire, Glasgow, etc,, at mere nominal
duties, while the hand-wrought manufactures of Bengal
and Bchar, beautiful in fabric and durable in wear,
have had heavy and almost prohibitive duties imposed
on their importation to England .” 48
While the commercial policy of the administration was
thus re-orientated in the interests of the new class that
was seizing the reins of power in Britain, the Company
was steadily extending its domain in India. Instances have
already been given of their methods in this respect. In
the time of Warren Hastings war was made upon the
Rohillas, whose “little territory enjoyed,” writes Macaulay,
“the blessings of repose under the guardianship of valour.
Agriculture and commerce flourished amongst them.”
Their country, however, was coveted by the Nawab ol
Oudh, who hired from the Company a British army, with
the aid of which the Rohillas were subdued, and “the
rich province which had tempted the cupidity of Sujah
Daula became the most miserable part even of his
miserable dominions .” 19 With the annexation of Oudh
itself the whole of these territories passed into British
hands.
Parts of Mysore were annexed in 1799 a fter a war with
Tipu Sultan. The dominions of this prince were described
by a certain Lt.-Colonel Moore in language which pays
tribute to their condition.
“When a person, travelling through a strange country,
finds it well cultivated, populous with industrious
inhabitants, cities well founded, commerce extending,
towns increasing, and everything flourishing so as to
indicate happiness, he naturally concludes the form of
Government congenial to the people. This is a picture
of Tippu’s government .” 68
A curious aspect of the war with Tipu Sultan, which
may be noted with some interest, is the use made by the
British of their connections with the Turkish Government.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
62
Tipu Sultan was a Mohammedan, and die Sultan of
Turkey was the spiritual head of the Mohammedan world. 51
Hut at the Turkish Court British influence was at that time
predominant, and when Tipu Sultan began negotiations
with France the British Government appealed to the
Sultan of Turkey as the “acknowledged head of the
Mohammedan Church.” The Turk complied, and Lord
Mornington (who is better known by his later title as
Marquis Wellesley) forwarded to Tipu the reply received
from Constantinople urging him to “consider it with
the respectful attention which it demands.”
Tipu appears to have complied for a time with the
wishes of his spiritual overlord, for he wrote to the Turkish
Sultan that “as the French nation arc estranged from, and
are become the opponents of the Sublime Porte, they may
be said to have rendered themselves the enemy of all the
followers of the Faith.” In a later letter, however, he com-
plained that “English people want to make war on me
and have collected arms and munitions for that purpose,
i am therefore compelled to declare Jehad against them.” 62
Such, indeed, was the case. In February, 1799, Lord
Mornington, who had assembled an army at Madras,
invaded Mysore; 53 and after defeating its forces in two
engagements he besieged its capital, where Tipu Sultan
died in its defence.
In the same year that Mysore was dismembered Surat
was annexed after the death of its Nawab , Wellesley forcing
die Nawab’s brother to retire on a pension, in favour
of the Company. A similar fate overtook the Karnatic in
.1801. Dalhousie, who became Governor-General in 1848,
instituted the practice of annexing the territory of Indian
States on the death of the ruling prince wherever there was
no direct heir, 64 and by 1857 the British territories amounted
to about 800,000 square miles.
The greatest resistance up to the time of the Sikh Wars
was offered by the Mahrathas, the great Hindu Confederacy
which we noted in a previous chapter as the leading native
power in India at the time when the Mughals were crushed
by invasion from the North and the armies of Bengal were
scattered by the artillery and intrigues of Clive.
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 63
Of the Mahratha Confederation Sir John Malcolm 55
said in 1832 :
“It has not happened to me ever to see countries
better cultivated and more abounding in all the produce
of the soil as well as in commercial wealth, than the
Southern Mahratha districts. . . . Poona, the capital
of the Peshwas, was a very wealthy and thriving com-
mercial town, as there was as much cultivation in the
Deccan as it was possible for an arid and unfruitful
country to admit. I do not think either commercial or
agricultural interests are likely to be improved by our
rule. I refer their prosperity to be due . . .to the
knowledge and almost devotion of the Hindus to agri-
cultural pursuits; to their better understanding and
practice than ours ... in raising towns and villages
to prosperity.” 66
Many years after the conquest of this proud race that
came so near to being the instrument of Indian unification, 57
a distinguished English journalist who toured India sneering
at most things Indian paused at Poona to pay a tribute of
pity to its unborn empire. 58
“The ease of the Mahrathas offers an unhappy and
unique combination ot everything that can embitter
subjection. They were gallant warriors, if wanting
stamina; they were also patriots, devotees, and a people
of extraordinary acuteness of intellect. The Rohillas,
whom we conquered, were as gallant warriors; but they
were adventurers, not a nation. The Ghurkhas, from
whom we captured provinces, were both gallant and
patriotic; but they were careless of religion, while to the
straitly Hindu Mahrathas the very existence of British
rule is a compulsion to daily impiety. The Sikh is brave,
patriotic and religious; but he is simple and unlettered,
and easily forgets a beating in the satisfaction of having
fought a good fight. The Mahratha, more introspective,
lings the smarts of defeat. The Bengali vaunts as acute
a mind — at least until it comes to action — -but he has
forgotten what it is to be free. Each has his compensation,
except the Mahratha. His empire, his nationality, his
religion, his beautiful language — we have taken away
his all.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
"U is not our fault. Some of his complaints are even
ri olcsquely self-destructive. For example, he seizes
> Kvdily on English education to fit himself for political
• ml journalistic attacks upon us, and in elaborate
d.icaulayesque periods complains that the English
tongue is killing the Mahrathi. Another of the Brahman’s
■ ticvanccs is that he is poor; yet when he gets a Govcrn-
tiirnt post that would be great wealth for one, he divides
ii into pittances for a score of brothers and sisters and
uncles and aunts, who all come to live in his house. This
I- his religion, and it is a most unselfish one; but it is
Jf liis doing, not ours.” 59
i M those States which remained unconquered many
nl. red as severely from British financiers as did the others
1 invasion or annexation. The Nizam of Hyderabad
Inn lowed huge sums in 1821 from British money-lenders,
1 Imi look interest from his revenue at 25 per cent. His
ili 11 1 1 inions became, in the years that followed
.1 great congeries of diseases. Nothing seemed to
nourish there except corruption . . . the wretched
people were dragooned into submission, and the required
payments extorted from them at the bayonet’s point or
i til the sabre’s edge.” 50
I here remained, however, a few States immune alike
li.ini the armies, the influence and the loans of the conquer-
1 up race. Bishop Heber has provided us with an interesting
fiili h of Bharatpur in the early years of the nineteenth
■■titiiry, which contrasts favourably with the general
limdition of the country:
I his country,” wrote Ileber, “is one of the best
1 ultivated and watered tracts which I have seen in
India. . . . The population did not seem great, but
1 hr villages were in good condition and repair, and the
whole afforded so pleasing a picture of industry and was
1,0 much superior to anything I had been led to expect
111 Rajputana, which I had seen in the Company’s
territories, that I was led to suppose that either the Raja
a! Bharatpur was an extreme exemplary and paternal
governor or that the system of management adopted in
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 65
the British provinces was less favourable to the improve-
ment and happiness of the country than some of the
Native States.” 61
The material deterioration of the country' was not,
however, the only result of this slow absorption of a sub-
continent by a Joint Stock Company. 62 An ingrained sense of
inferiority in a subject people has in all ages been a principal
means of their own subjection; and this sense of inferiority,
which is variously explained in terms of the moral turpitude
of the conquered or the moral ascendancy of the conqueror,
was already at the beginning of the nineteenth century
sufficiently noticeable to cause comment from Sir Thomas
Munro and other observers.
“Our present system of government,” wrote Sir
Thomas Munro in 1821, “by excluding all natives from
power, and trust, and emolument, is much more effi-
cacious in depressing, than all our law and school-books
can do in elevating their character. We are working
against our own designs, and we can expect to make no
progress while we work with a feeble instrument to
improve, and a powerful one to deteriorate. The improve-
ment of the character of a people, and the keeping them,
at the same time, in the lowest state of dependence
upon foreign rulers, to which they can be reduced by
conquest, are matters quite incompatible with each
other. There can be no hope of any great zeal for im-
provement, when the highest acquirements can lead to
nothing beyond some petty office, and can confer neither
wealth nor honour.” 63
A few years later Munro reflected on the probable
condition of Britain if subjected to such a rule as that of
which he himself had been an instrument in India:
“Let Britain be subjugated by a foreign Power to-
morrow, let the people be excluded from all share in the
Government, from public honours, from every office
of high trust and emolument, and let them in every
situation be considered as unworthy of trust, and all their
knowledge and all their literature, sacred and profane,
would not save them from becoming in another generation
or two, a low-minded, deceitful, and dishonest race.” 64
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Mi ui' 0 himself was an advocate of administrative reforms
III Tiidi m°hi i aVC placed vast ‘y increased responsibility
Indian hands, not on a basis of political independence
, . !’ subser viencc to the interests of the Company of
v in h Indians would have been the principal agents ^He
Mnn ^ 3 hUndred ' f * e constitution
, b ™ posed m '937- Sir Henry Strachey was
.Iibrct ofTh ° P ;"- as . shown b y evidence on the
M|l J cct °* the administration ofjustice:
IJcneL 1 m^-ht°a mi | )n n tha J. aI l the J u . dicial Unctions of
gc lght giaclually be thrown into the hands nf
natives, and that the business would be as well conducted
under our regulation by the natives as Europeans in
some aspects better, and at one tenth of the expense.’” »*
Strachey held that “with respect to integrity and diligence
he natives may be trusted with tire administration ofjustice’
ink no superintendence of Europeans necessary.” Refer-
'uig to the existing practice, he said: *
tion W m Pl ;T thC . Eur °P ean bc y° nd th e reach of tempta-
with’-, no ," a i Ve aSSIgn some ministerial office
with a poor stipend of twenty to thirty rupees a month-
then we pronounce that the Indians are co. rupt and d m
govern, hem"”" ^ C ° mp ^' S ~ are fit to
Another witness who gave evidence in the enquiries
natives VTndia ° l0nCl Walker ’ who deposed “that the
ie ad m,n sir t; r y V'" ‘ CSpCCt '° i,Ue S ri, y> bc ‘".sted with
c -administration ol justice; and that some of the civil
nllices of government may be confided to them with safety
and advantage.”* 6 Other opinions were given to the
contrary effect; but the evidence cited above is signffidnt
.'“tent borot ° rigin ° f the and
must ha, • , I P re J udlce and vested interest which
nust have weighed against Indians in such an enquiry
.in it! H°adfi-° f 'l he i Compan y was acvertheless continued
deterioration of 3 baS1S ' and was accompanied by that
" n l , f f t ! 0nal character to which we have
-dready alluded. It is true that the Charter Act of 1833
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 67
declared that “no Native of the Indian territories, nor any
natural-born subject of His Majesty resident therein,
shall, by reason of his religion, place of birth, descent,
colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any
office or employment under the Company.” But the
power to interpret this very liberal pronouncement remained
vested in the discretion of the ruling race, which continued
to find every reason other than those of religion, birth,
descent or colour for excluding the vast mass of Indians
from all positions of major importance in the adminis-
tration. 67
The evidence of Munro, Strachey and Walker on Indian
character is of all the more interest because of its marked
contrast to that of Warren Hastings on the character of
Europeans in India. In addition to a very strong pronounce-
ment which has already been cited, Hastings gave important
evidence on the subject of the general admission of Europeans
into the Indian provinces. 68
“He expressed it as his opinion, that if Europeans
were admitted generally to go into the country, to mix
with the inhabitants or form establishments amongst
them, the consequence would certainly and inevitably
be the ruin of the country: they would insult, plunder
and oppress the natives, and no laws enacted from home
could prevent them from committing acts of licentious-
ness of every kind with impunity. A general feeling of
hostility to the Government would be excited; and
although the armed force might be of sufficient strength
to suppress any overt acts of insurrection, yet the stability
of the empire must bc endangered by universal discontent.
The opinions of Lord Teignmouth, Colonel Malcolm,
Colonel Munro, and other distinguished servants ot the
Company were of a similar tendency, and deprecated
strongly the unrestricted admission of Europeans to the
interior of the country. Experience had proved, they
affirmed, that it was difficult to impress even upon the
servants of the Company, whilst in their noviciate, a
due regard for the feelings and habits of the people;
and Englishmen of classes less under the observation of
the superior authorities were notorious for the contempt
with which, in their national arrogance and ignorance,
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
tliey contemplated the usages and institutions of the
natives, and for their frequent disregard of the dictates
oMiunianity and justice in their dealings with the people
lndia - T]le natives, although timid and feeble in some
places, were not without strength and resolution in others;
iind instances had occurred where their resentment had
proved formidable to their oppressors. It was difficult
i( not impossible, to afford them protection, for the
Englishman was amenable only to the courts of British
law established at the Presidencies; and although the
local magistrate had the power of sending him thither for
trial, yet, to impose upon the native complainants and
witnesses the obligation of repairing many hundred miles
<o obtain redress, was to subject them to delay, fatigue,
and expense, which would be more intolerable than the
injury they had suffered. 00 There was in fact, therefore,
no ledress, and the only security that the natives enjoyed
was the power vested in the Government of removing
a troublesome and mischievous European from the
provinces to the Presidency, or even, if necessary, of
sending him altogether out of India.”
No protest, however, could stem the economic tide of
• m industrial age. In the nineteenth century English-
men came in increasing numbers to India as traders, soldiers
and civilian officials: and with their advent the crisis
which Hastings had foreseen drew nearer to its fulfilment.
I bat crisis was the revolt of 1857, which was to mark
Ihe last days of the Company’s rule.
Meanwhile the Company continued its conquests. In
1839 die Amirs of Sind were forced beneath its yoke. “In
many other respects,” says the Oxford History of India ,
the chiefs were fleeced and treated unfairly, but it is
needless to pursue further the unpleasant subject.” 70
Ihe East India Company, however, thought otherwise,
for it pursued the unpleasant subject to the extent of attack-
ing its. vassals in Sind five years later. Sir Charles Napier
wrote of this episode: “We have no right to seize Sind, yet
we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, humane
piece of rascality it will be.” 71 Henry Lawrence, with less
cynicism, observed that “My opinion is that from begin-
ning to end the Ameers have been treated harshly, and most
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 69
of them unjustly.” According to Colonel Outram, the
solemn treaties which the Company had itself forced upon
the Amirs “were treated as waste paper, past acts of friend-
ship and kindness towards us in the hour of extremity
were disregarded, false charges were heaped upon them,
and the ruthless and unrelenting sword of a faithless and
merciless ally completed their destruction.” 72
The new conquests of the Company, no less than the
administration of their older British territories, helped to
produce the mutiny of 1857. For, with the notable exception
of the Sikhs, the Company had every native community
in the country against them. 73 But fortunately for the
Company’s interests, the Indians had as yet no leaders
apart from their old feudal aristocracy, which inspired almost
as little confidence as the power it sought to dethrone.
NOTES
1 Dutt, Vol I, pp. 100 et seq.
2 The Company later attempted to retract, and even ordered the
restoration of Tanjore after its annexation in 1773. But the money-
lenders in Madras (Benfield and his friends) intrigued with the Com-
ma nder-in- Chief, arrested the Company’s Governor (Lord Pigot) and
imprisoned him in 177b till his death a year later. (See Cambridge
Shorter History , p. 585,)
8 Dutt, Vol I, p. 105.
* See Chapter II.
6 II. H. Dodwell, in the Cambridge Shorter History, describes Benfield as
“an engineer in the Company’s service, who in modern times would
have made a great name as a financier.”
B Burke’s speech on the Nawab of Arcot’s debts. Quoted by Dutt,
Vol I, pp. 1 1 4—1 15.
7 Chatham Correspondence. Quoted by Lecky in his History of
England in the Eighteenth Century and by Leonard Woolf {After the
Deluge, p. 97).
8 See Macaulay’s Essay on Clive, where this aspect of the Parliamentary
struggle is clearly outlined.
* For Macaulay’s observations, see Chapter III.
Lecky in his History of England in the Eighteenth Century telb us how
“At the end of the seventeenth century, great quantities of cheap and
graceful Indian calicoes, muslins and chintzes, were imported into
England.” He mentions the Act of 1700 and a similar one of 1721.
18 The Company’s monopoly of the Indian trade had been curtailed
in 1793; so that the period of rising tariffs mentioned here corresponds
with a time when, there was a normal trade as well as the “Investment
system.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
7 °
11 The duty on calicoes fell to 67J per cent in 1824 and by 1832 had
reached 10 per cent; but it was still considerably higher than the
revenue duty of 2J per cent imposed on British cloth exported to India.
11 This refers to inland duties, details of which are given later in
tins chapter.
13 The Pioneer (Allahabad), Sept. 7th, 1891.
14 See the evidence of Francis Brown before the Select Committee
of 1848, quoted by Dut t, Vol II, p. 135. The testimony of this witness,
tailed as an expert on cotton, was extremely damning with regard to
other aspects of policy. He said that an Indian appeared to him “a
creature born to pay the East India Company” and that the Company’s
Government had “generally tended to the impoverishment and abase-
ment of the people.” He also spoke of the extraordinary decline of
irrigation under the Company’s rule. (Dutt, Vol II, pp. 136-7.)
16 As explained later, the trading monopoly was finally abolished
in 1813, but the Company continued to trade in competition with
nval enterprises until 1833.
‘‘From 1O32 onwards industrial capitalism gradually displaced
kinded interest in Parliament.
17 Dividends had formerly (after 1769) been limited to isi per cent.
(See previous chapter.)
la As explained in the previous chapter, the Act of 1769 aimed at
equalising the Company’s debts (mainly war loans) by 2 per cent
loans to the British Government out of their surplus profits fi e after
payment of per cent dividends and £400,000 to the British
Exchequer). Thus, when the British Government took over the
Administration of India they wiped out their own debt to the Company
by taking over its outstanding obligations, which will be examined in
inore etail later. Interest on the Company^ debts, however, remained
i barge able on the Indian revenues, which now became the property
Of Great Britain. 1 P y
Sir John Malcolm, who was at that time Governor of Bombay,
noted in a general minute (dated Nov. 30th, 1830), that “ In the despatch
o the Court it is observed that their attention has been directed in a
Mpccial manner to this subject, and to look to India for the means of
rendering Great Britain independent of foreign countries for a con-
siderable portion of raw material, upon which her most valuable
manufactures depend.”
10 See Chapter I.
11 It should be noted that the Navigation Acts, which required the
< .ompany’s ships to be manned by British seamen, destroyed at the
■umie time all possibility of Indians being employed in British shipping
rven when the ships were built in India.
^Letter dated Dec. 16th, 1670. Quoted by Mookerji in his History
of Indian Shipping (page 233). Mookerji quotes evidence that the British
borrowed plans and designs from the Indian builders.
Indian ironwork includes some of the oldest specimens that are
lo be found in the world, as was demonstrated by Mr. Ball in the
Geological Survey of India. According to this authority the famous
it on pillar at Delhi is at least 1,500 old, and there arc even to-day
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 7 1
comparatively few factories where such a mass of metal could be
manufactured. Indeed, till recently it would have been thought
impossible.
24 Taylor’s History of India , quoted by Mrs. Besant in India , Bond
or Free ? (p. 140). At the end of the Bengal month of Pous a maritime
festival is still celebrated which commemorates the days of an indigenous
merchant traffic ; and up to recent years discarded craft built of Indian
teak was still trading along the coasts of North-West Europe.
26 Dutt (Vol II, p. 1 1 4) mentions the large ships built at Calcutta
in the Seventeen-nineties, but states that by 1840 ship-building at
Calcutta had been abandoned.
26 Joynson Hicks’ words are given here as quoted by Mr. Lansbury
in the House of Commons. (Hansard, March nth, 1926.) Considered
as an historical analysis this statement is hopelessly inaccurate, since
the question of “an outlet for British goods” did not arise until the
conquest of India in other interests was well on its way. In spite of
this, Lord Brentford’s famous words express boldly and accurately the
spirit of nineteenth century politics.
27 At this point someone, says Lansbury, shouted “Shame”; to
which Joynson Hicks replied “Gall it shame if you like. I am stating
facts.”
28 Continuation to Mill’s History of British India> Vol VII, p. 385.
26 Dutt (Vol I, p. 251) quotes an interesting table of figures from
1794 to 1813 showing this steady increase. The figures were supplied
to an Order of the House of Commons dated May 4th, 1813. This
was only the beginning of the vast increases which are recorded later.
50 Marx in Capital (p. 462 in the Everyman edition) quotes the
Governor-General as saying in 1834: “The misery hardly finds a parallel
in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton weavers are bleach-
ing the plains of India,”
31 Vol I, Chapter XIV.
32 Minutes of Evidence, 1813, p. 3. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 257-8.
33 Dutt, Vol I, p. 258.
Dutt also mentions the evidence of Graeme Mercer, an experienced
servant of the Company, who “stated that Lord Wellesley had endeav-
oured to find markets for such goods by instituting Fairs in Rohilkhand,
exhibiting British woollens in those Fairs, and by directing the British
Resident to attend the great Fair at Hardwar with the same object.”
34 Munro was a distinguished servant of the Company who held
office in India from 1780-1807.
36 Minutes of Evidence (1813). Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 265*
Munro and Lord Teignmouth submitted similar evidence^ while
Thomas Sydenham went even further and stated that 1 Englishmen
are more apt than any other nation to commit violence in foreign
countries, and this I believe to be the case in India.
34 H. H. Wilson. Continuation of Mill’s History of British India ,
Vol VII, pp. 4 1 3-414. Wilson in a footnote quotes a speech made as
early as 1806 by Mr. Alderman Prinsep who speaking of the probable
substitution of raw cotton for cotton goods in the ships of private traders,
made the remarkable observation that a sufficient supply of the raw
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
liriul would, accelerate the period which he saw approaching,
■n the natives of India should be supplied with cloth made in
Hind of their own cotton, leaving to the Mother Country all the
[li* of height, agency, commission, insurance and manufacture. ”
1 1 , Debates 14th March, 1806.)
* f Dutt, Vol I, p. 257.
*' Report of Famine Commission (1880).
*' Sonnet dated October, 1803.
‘•Continuation of Mill’s History. Vol VII, p. 385 (footnote).
Rlt (Vol I, p. 293) cites the evidence given in the Commons’ Reports
l‘* 3 0- 3 I II proof of the fact that duties on Indian manufactures even
died 400 per cent in some cases, while the Indian duties stood at
per cent.
Minutes of Evidence on the Affairs of the East India Company
Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 264. Dutt cites a Mr. Cox who
Jjflposed that 1,500 weavers, not including their families and conn ec-
Him*, were under his authority in the factory over which he presided.”
[ " Ellenborough became Governor-General in 1842. The letter
(milled was written to the Chairman of the Company, and is dated
Mitrch 1 8th, 1835. It is cited by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 306-7.
1 ® ce Chapter III. Of this unfortunate man Thompson and Garratt
In their and Fulfilment of British Rule make the comment that he was
H genuine patriot and an able ruler, who quickly retrenched expendi-
Itllr and suppressed disorder. But he was to be driven to the edge of
lltmimty, if not over it.”
I ** This report was principally responsible for the eventual abolition
II the inland duties. Macaulay said of it that he had “never read an
Hiller state paper.”
* 1 Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 304-5.
' ' The articles mentioned were all raw materials required for British
Mtiuiufactures, and the indigo plantations were mostly British-owncd,
* ' Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 290.
" Eastern India by Montgomery Martin (London 1838),
" One of the Company’s servants who was posted at Patna in
Ivmc i, 1774 (when the Company’s brigade was marching to join the
fnires of Sujah Daula) wrote that: “Mr. Hastings’ settlement . . .
ilnlli not meet with the approbation of people in general. It is called
Imng the troops to the country Powers.” (Palk Manuscripts, 1922.)
llie letter is quoted by a writer in the Nineteenth Century of November,
MH7, and it is significant that the writer, in an article written to defend
character of Warren Hastings, remarks that: ‘‘he must be held to
ilrscrve grave reproach for his engagement in the Rohilla War. Lyall’s
Vlt w, that he was singularly blind to the political immorality of our
participation in it, has not been disturbed.”
19 Moore s Narrative of the War with Tippu Saltan (p. 201).
There were, of course, considerable Moslem sects which did not
*** n , OW ledge the supremacy of the Khilafat , but Tipu as an orthodox
Moslem was subject to it in the same sense that a Roman Catholic
LANCASHIRE SUCCEEDS JOHN COMPANY 7R
would be subject to the Pope. One of Lord Mornington’s very illumin-
ating letters will be found, quoted in full, in Mr. Brockway’s Indian
Crisis (pp. 66-7),
52 A Review of the Origin , Progress and Result of the Decisive War with
the late Tipu Sultan , by T. Cadell and W. Davis, London, 1800. This
correspondence affords an interesting illustration of the strong tie
which even to-day unites the Moslem world. The Khilafat agitation in
India after the Great War is a modern instance of this, the strongest
animosity having been excited among Moslems because the British
Government had broken its pledges to respect the Holy Places of Islam.
63 Cambridge Shorter History of India , pp. 603-4.
64 According to Indian custom the ruler could adopt an heir; but
by 1848 the Company was strong enough to overrule this custom, and
the official policy was to lose no opportunity of extending the Company’s
territories and revenues. (See Statement of 1841, quoted by Dutt,
Vol II, p. 25.)
® 6 Other interesting passages in Sir John Malcolm’s statement are
quoted by Dutt (Vol II, pp. 41 5-41 7). The statement was made before
a select Committee of the House of Commons, and is given here as
quoted in the Indian Cyclopedia, p. 27.
e * A writer in Young India (Dec. 5th, 1929) quotes a similar account
by Anquetil Duperron: “When I entered the country of the Mahrathas,
I thought myself in the midst of simplicity and happiness of the golden
age. . . . The people were cheerful, vigorous and in high health, and
unbounded hospitality was a universal virtue.”
BT The Mahrathas owed their independence in the early years of the
Company’s rule largely to the statesmanship of the great minister,
Nana Farnavis. He is described by Thompson and Garratt as “a man
of strict veracity, humane, frugal and charitable,” also as “the greatest
Indian statesman of the eighteenth century. . . , Courteously and with-
out giving offence adequate for war, he had put by numerous invitations
to walk into the parlour where Nizam, Nawabs of Oudh, Bengal, the
Carnatic and several smaller rulers were being entertained.” (fitw
and Fulfilment of British Rule in India , pp. 213, 215.)
68 In India by G. W. Steevens (1899), pp, 289—290,
. 6 ® It escaped the observation of Mr. Steevens that the generosity of
Marathas in government positions did not account for the poverty
of those who were not. Indeed, in so far as it would afTect the welfare of
the masses at all, it would render their condition more inexplicable.
80 Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, by Thompson and Garratt.
“There is still a Nizam,” Macaulay wrote in his Essay on Clive, “whose
capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and to whom a British
Resident gives, under the name of advice, commands which are not
to be disputed.”
41 Heber's Journal, Vol II, p. 17. See for comparison the Bishop’s
remarks quoted in Chapter VI.
To this period belongs the first Press Ordinance, of March 14th,
1823, justified on the grounds that “the liberty of the Press is not con-
sistent with the character of our institutions in this country” (W. B.
Bay ley’s Minute: Calcutta Council, October 10th, 1822). One reason
given was that an Indian paper had ridiculed the Holy Trinity. The
74 the white SAHIBS IN INDIA
( >rdinance led to the closing-down of one of the first “reform 11 papers,
edited by Ram Mohun Roy.
63 Letter to Canning. Quoted by Thompson in his History of
India , pp. 63-4.
“ Written in 1824 and quoted by Thompson, in his History of India
(p* 73 )* Thompson, writing in 1927, comments that “Indians have not
been excluded during the last 40 years as completely as the quotation
implies, though it is only now that they are getting representatives
other than official nominees; and they are not a ‘low-minded, deceitful
and dishonest race.’”
4 s Evidence given before the Parliamentary Committee in 1813.
Quoted by H. H. Wilson. (Mill, Vol VII, p. 280.) The quotations
given below from Strachey and Colonel Walker are from the same
source.
44 Colonel Walker, in a letter to the Company, gives a warning
against the opinions of European officials on Indian character. He
says that “they often undervalue the qualifications of the natives from
motives of prejudice or interest,” {East India Papers , London. 1O20.
Vol II, p. 188.)
4) Lord Lylton in a Confidential Minute of 1878 remarked of the
Act of 1833 that “No sooner was the Act passed than the Government
began to devise means for practically evading the fulfilment of it.”
I his minute was quoted by the First Indian Member of Parliament
(Dadabhai Naorogi) in Poverty and un-British Rule in India (London, 1901).
This was also the view of Hay Cameron (Legal Member of the Governor-
General’s Council from 1843-8), who told a Committee of the House
of Lords in 1853 that not a single Indian had benefitted by this Act.
(See Dutt, Vol II, p. 187.)
44 1 his account of the evidence taken before the Select Committee of
both Houses in 1813 is quoted from Wilson’s continuation of Mill’s
History, Vol VII, pp. 375-6.
44 The additional comment may be made, and will be developed
further in the next chapter, that the procedure of the British Courts
was unintelligible to all but the educated Indians. Therefore the
couits were the last places where a villager would seek redress — even
though, like the Ritz Hotel, they were open to all.
10 1 his passage is quoted by Thompson in his History of India with the
remark that the Amirs of Sind were forced into a subsidiary alliance
and their independence made a farce.”
11 Napier was in command of the expedition, which was the occasion
of his famous “Peccavi” despatch. His account of it as given here is
from his diary, quoted by Thompson in his History of India , Thompson
mentions that Napier received £70,000 “as private prize-money,” as
a result of the expedition.
71 Conquest of Sindh, by Lt, Col. Outram, London, 1846.
I he Sikhs were so violently opposed to the Moslems who had
oppressed them in the past that they sided with the British against the
attempt to revive the power of the Mughals. A further account of
this will be given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V
THE REVOLT OF 1 857
Readers of George Borrow will remember that the hero
of The Romany Rye in the last chapter of that excellent book
meets a recruiting sergeant of the Honourable East India
Company. The sergeant invites him to take service in India,
“the finest country in the world,” albeit peopled by “a
set of rascals not worth regarding,” who speak a “beastly
gibberish.” All that the Company’s service requires of
the young man is “to kick and cut down” these rascals,
“and take from them their rupees, which means silver
money.”
The Romany Rye was published in 1857, the fatal year in
which the rascals revolted. The Company in its latter
years had done all that was consistent with its financial
ideals to bring order out of the chaos of its first conquests.
It had suppressed all rival organisations that challenged
its monopoly of destruction and direct exploitation, including
dacoits and thugs . 1 Missionary consciences which had
remained unmoved by the wars and extortions of the
Company itself had been gratified by its abolition of sail
among the Hindus. 2 At the time when the mutiny broke
out among the Indian sepoys, the rule of the Company
was already approximating in its technique to the ideals
of imperial administration as they came eventually to be
expounded by the school of Rhodes, Chamberlain and
Kipling.
The last important action of the Company before the
Mutiny was the annexation of Oudh, constituting the eighth
major annexation under the administration of Dalhousic.
“Lord Dalhousic,” says Seeley, the great historian of
empire, “stands out in history as a ruler of the type of
Frederick the Great, and did deeds which are almost as
difficult to justify as the seizure of Silesia or the partition
75
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
7C
dI Poland. But these acts, if crimes, are crimes of the same
order as those of Frederick, crimes of ambition.” 3 With
Dalhousie there began in earnest what Hyndman 4 described
as “that course of unscrupulous annexation and wholesale
Europeanisation from which our empire is now suffering.” 6
The effects of this policy were exposed by an English
writer four years before the Mutiny. In his book Govern-
ment of India Under a Bureaucracy , published in London in
1853, Mr. John Dickinson contrasted the “simple and
rational mode of dispensing justice,” which India had
evolved with the “obscure, complicated, pedantic system
of English law ” which was replacing it. Few recognised,
however, that the new legal system was only part of a new
economic force that was uprooting the country; for British
law was the law of the landlord and the capitalist. 6
The annexation of Oudh was announced by proclamation
on February 13th, 1856. The contemporary comments of
Sir William Sleeman, who was the British Resident at
Lucknow from 1840 to 1854, give us some impression of
how the matter was viewed from the Indian side:
“The people,” he wrote, “or at least a great part of
them, would prefer to reside in Oudh . . . rather than
in our own districts, under the evils the people are
exposed to from the uncertainty of our law, the multi-
plicity of our courts, the pride and negligence of those
who preside over them, and the corruption and insolence
of those who must be employed to prosecute or defend
a cause in them and enforce the fulfilment of a decree
when passed. I am persuaded that if it were put to the
vote among the people of Oudh, 99 in 100 would rather
remain as they are than have our system introduced in
its present complicated state.” 7
The rule of the Kings of Oudh had certainly been oppres-
sive in the past, and all the more so because, as tributaries
of the East India Company, they were guaranteed by its
powerful military forces against insurrection. 6 But a worse
fate lay before them, for the cumbersome legal system to
which Sir William Sleeman so forcibly alluded was now
applied to the territories of Oudh as well as to the rest of
the broad dominions of the Company.
THE REVOLT OF I 8 5 7 77
“The first activities of the English judges were terrifying
and incomprehensible to every Indian.” A simple people,
used to laws which a peasant could understand and a
village council could interpret, they were completely
baffled by “the apparently capricious proceedings of the
Supreme Court. It was a new ceremonial, meaningless
and of almost religious obscurity.” 9 Nor did British law
become any less of a mystery or a menace to the poor as
the educated classes began to fathom it. According to the
authors of the Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule :
“A new field was opened to the higher caste Hindus,
whose subtle minds delighted in the tortuosities of
eighteenth century law. The Brahmin had centuries of
experience in dominating his fellows by his knowledge
of religious rites and by magnifying their importance.
Here was a new form of magic, of immense potency.” 10
The legal labyrinth of the eighteenth century had not
become much straighter by the year 1857; and even in the
present day it is not such a path that the wayfaring man,
being a fool, cannot err therein. Even the labours of the
Law Commission, which had been at work in the thirties
under the presidency of Macaulay, had not yet brought
forth their grim offspring, for the doubtful blessings of the
Indian Penal Code were not experienced until 1862. 11
It was the rapid advance, by a policy of wholesale
annexation, of this terrifying administration, complicated
in its judicial system and extortionate in its demands, which
converted an army mutiny into a political revolt. Reference
lias often been made to this revolt as though it had been
confined to the Sepoy forces, but this was by no means the
case. In Oudh, particularly, there was a popular move-
ment in sympathy with the mutineers. “In Jhansi State,
which had been annexed by Lord Dalhousie, the Dowager
Rani ivas the life and soul of the insurrection, fought in
male aitirc against the British troops, and died on the
field of battle.” 1 2
The revolt began at Meerut, whence mutiny spread
rapidly through the Sepoy army in Bengal. It was a
hundred years after the fateful battle of Plassey, a fact which
'/It THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
was realised throughout Northern India. That revolution
was planned and organised on a very wide scale is proved
by subsequent evidence regarding the mysterious chapatis
which were sent round from village to village before the
mutiny, with messages from some unknown centre. 13 On
l he side of the peasants and plantation workers who rallied
lo the support of the mutineers there were, however,
important deficiencies. The peasants had neither ade-
quate supplies of arms, nor leaders, other than the dis-
gruntled aristocratic elements of a feudal society which
had suffered from the Company’s depredations.
The story of the greased cartridges, of which so much
has been made by many historians, sinks into insignificance
when compared with the major issues that were at stake,
"The cartridges provided merely the occasion of the mutiny.
The real cause lay in popular discontents, reflected in the
army.” 14 On the side of the Company were the British
troops, the Gurkhas and the Sikhs. The Gurkhas were
recruited from Nepal, beyond the frontiers of India, and
lihowed all the qualities of foreign mercenaries, being alien
both in race and religion to the peoples of India. The
position of the Sikhs was curious, for the annexation of
their country had been among the recent achievements
ofDalhousie, and in most cases the peoples of states recently
annexed proved the most spirited in the revolt.
Dalhousie’s policy in the Punjab, however, had been
far-seeing. The struggle with the Sikhs had been the
hardest of all the wars of conquest which had been fought
by the Company, and victory had only been obtained by
extensive treachery. Of the first Sikh War, Dutt writes
(hat "the commander of the Sikh army, Lai Singh, was a
traitor, and probably wished the destruction of the army
lie led.” 15 He fled at the beginning of the first battle, leaving
his leaderless troops to face inevitable defeat. The second
battle was obstinately contested, but once more the Sikhs
were defeated by the same man’s treachery. Alter a third
British victory a final engagement was fought in which
“Tej Singh, the Sikh commander, fled at the first assault,
and is supposed to have broken the bridge over the Sutlej
to prevent the escape of his army.” 18
T HE REVOLT OF 1857 79
The valour and discipline of the Sikh troops were proved
in spite of the conduct of their leaders. It became the
policy of the Company to break up the Sikh kingdom,
but to treat with moderation a race so formidable, placed
geographically where its martial talent could be used for
the defence of the frontier.
By the treaty of 1846 the Punjab was therefore reduced
to a tributary status. Two years later, however, the Sikhs
were in arms again. After two hotly contested actions a
third was fought at Chilianwala, which (as Hunter remarks
in his History of India) "British patriotism prefers to call a
drawn battle.” 17 In 1849, however, the British secured
a decisive victory and annexed the Punjab, in spite of
Dalhousie’s proclamation at the outset of the second Sikh
War that the British army "entered the Lahore territories
not as an enemy of the constituted government, but to
restore order and obedience.” 18
The work of pacification, however, now began in earnest.
"The militancy of the peasants and their nearness to
the frontier had forced the British to compromise, with
the result that the power of the zemindars had been broken
and the ancient rights of the village communes had been
restored. For the same reasons the land taxes had not
been raised excessively and the peasant in the Punjab
only paid 10 per cent to 15 per cent of his produce in
rent instead of half, or even three-quarters, as in other
districts.” 19
Such was the position in the Punjab when the mutineers
from Meerut hurled themselves upon Delhi and declared
their allegiance to the last of the Mughal emperors, in whose
name the Company even to that day administered its
territories. 20 But action which evoked from its obscurity
the shadowy court of the Mughal dynasty was fatal to
* unity among the potential forces of revolution. The Sikhs
remembered only too well their long oppression by the
Mughal tyrants, and the Company was fortunate in being
able to show a contrast in its treatment of their community.
This was perhaps the decisive factor in the war that fol-
lowed, in which the valour of the Sikhs was used against
the forces of national revolt.
i
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
In addition to its armies the Company had on its side
* advantages of organisation, equipment, and the prestige
Iim i accrues to the de facto government. The mutineers,
ill ii few real leaders, soon tired of the Emperor. “What
uihority existed lay with a junta of Sepoy officers constantly
*,,lh by jealousy and mistrust. ” 21 They had, however,
* iM»u|>h common agreement to plunder the Delhi bankers
in order to raise payment for their soldiery.
Meanwhile mutinies had broken out throughout the
mattered Sepoy forces of Northern India. The conflict
* le i i followed was characterised by that implacable ferocity
Itich is common to civil and religious wars. 22 Those
in revolt knew that they would get no quarter if defeated,
mi I were determined to give none in their efforts to secure
» victory. On the other side were men as able, as bigoted
nid as cruel as Cromwell showed himself to be in his
hish campaign, when race and religion were involved in
(» very similar way. Of one of these men, John Nicholson,
Mr. H. H. Dodwell has significantly remarked that he
Intel “the stern Hebraic piety of a seventeenth century
Puritan, and knew that to him the victory would be
t'.iven.” 23 The ideas of such men contrast strangely with
die cynicism of their eighteenth century predecessors.
At the outset of the revolt a British force had marched
against Delhi. Here it was joined three months later by
.1 force from the Punjab, consisting mainly of British
reinforcements and Sikhs. The capital of the Mughals
Irll to this combined army in September 1857, and from
that moment the revolt waned. “A general massacre of
(he inhabitants of Delhi, a large number of whom were
known to wish us success, was openly proclaimed, ” 24 and
one of the British officers distinguished himself by mur-
dering three sons of the Emperor who had taken refuge
among the tombs. 25 The legend “Removed in 1857/'
which is to be found in many of the ancient buildings of
Delhi, bears eloquent testimony to the thoroughness with
which both law and order were restored in the city, the
counterpart to this melancholy motto being found among
the art treasures of our own country, to which much of
the loot was removed.
• 81
THE REVOLT OF 1857
At Cawnpore in the meantime the British garrison had
been forced to surrender to the mutineers. They were
promised a safe-conduct to Allahabad, but the boats which
they boarded for the journey were set on fire. Only one
boat made its escape, and in this four men only survived.
Mr. Dodwell’s comment on this episode is interesting and
informative :
“Death was the accepted punishment for mutiny.
. . , Wholesale execution is the appropriate punishment
for wholesale mutiny. . . . The blot on British conduct
does not lie in the military punishments which were
exacted but in the conduct of a number of officers who
took a bloody revenge upon guilty and innocent alike.
Indiscriminate executions had accompanied the sup-
pression of the mutinies at Benares and Allahabad.
They help to explain the pitiless slaughter of Cawnpore,
and both miserably prove how cruel men are made by
fear.” 26
A contemporary comment to the same effect is to be
found in the letters of Richard Cobden:
“Did you observe, ” he wrote to John Bright, “that
the men who swam ashore at Cawnpore after the boats,
in which were the garrison who had been promised a
safe passage, had been treacherously sunk, were blown
from the guns on successive days, no doubt in imitation
of our treatment of the Sepoys? To read the letters of
our officers at the commencement of the outbreak, it
seemed as if every subaltern had the power to hang
or shoot as many natives as he pleased, and they spoke
of the work of blood with as much levity as if they were
hunting wild animals. The last accounts would lead
one to fear that God is not favouring our cause, and that
too many of our countrymen are meeting the fate which
was intended for the natives.” 27
A general massacre followed of English women and
children in Cawnpore, though the mutineers refused to
take part in this. They said they were soldiers, not butchers.
On July 17th Elavelock entered Cawnpore at the head of
a British force. “Like Edvvardes and Nicholson he was a
devout evangelical, constant in prayer, convinced that his
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
THE
tin was the cause of God as well as of his country. ” 18
in massacre of Gawnpore was now avenged. 2 9 All mutin-
in were executed; but some were treated to the additional
nnents of civilised justice, being compelled ‘‘if neces-
‘i y with the lash, to lick the bloodstains from an appropriate
■ it < The official order concluded: “After properly clean-
IHMip his portion the culprit is to be immediately hanged.”
Meanwhile in England the power of prayer was strained
It- ih uttermost. Special intercessions were introduced into
i Church services of which the following is exemplary:
E
“Defend, we beseech Thee, our countrymen from the
malice and treachery of the sons of violence who have
risen up against them; rebuke the madness of the people
uid stay tlie hand of the destroyer . . . Direct the
i ounsels of those who rule in this hour of danger. Teach
die natives of British India to prize the benefits which
Thy good Providence lias given them through the
supremacy of this Christian land. . , . ” 30
These prayers were answered in a further series of victories.
I itcknow was relieved; and though the deposed Rani of
lhansi and her general (Tantia Topi) continued the
. i niggle for a whole year, they were finally defeated in
| uuc 1858. The Amazon queen died upon the field of
Kittle, but Tantia Topi survived until his capture and
txecution in 1859.
The vengeance of the conquerors is remembered in
India to this day. 31 “On one occasion some young boys
who, seemingly in mere sport, had haunted rebel colours
,md gone about beating tomtoms, were tried and sentenced
In death.” Women and children suffered with the aged
md helpless: “they were not deliberately hanged, but
burnt to death in their villages.” Englishmen boasted
l hat they had “spared no one” and that “peppering away
.it niggers” was a very pleasant pastime “enjoyed amaz-
ingly.” Kaye and Malleson estimate that about six thousand
Indians were summarily executed during a period of three
months, in addition to those killed without the formality
of a trial, of whose deaths no statistics arc available. 32
Not for the last time in Indian history the story of the
REVOLT OF 1857 “3
Black Hole of Calcutta was re-enacted. From the British
“Black Hole” only twenty-one prisoners out of sixty-six
survived death by suflocation, and these were then shot,
together with 216 others. “For this splendid assumption of
authority,” writes one historian, “Cooper was assailed by
the hysterical cries of ic^nor£Liit liurnamtarians*
The victory of the government was claimed to be due
to “a superiority of moral against a vast preponderance of
material force.” 34 England had triumphed; and in the
words of Swinburne:
“India knelt at her feet and felt her sway
More fruitful of life than Spring.” 35
All prospect of social revolt collapsed with the defeat of
the Sepoy army. “When civil government vanished, the
villagers had plundered and sometimes murdered local
money-lenders and grain dealers, paying off old scores,
and falling cheerfully into anarchy. But when the mutineers
were beaten and the district officials reappeared, they were
met with the old respect and obedience.
In England there were many who were unsatisfied with
the extent of the vengeance which followed the crushing
of the revolt. The Governor General was even jeered at as
“Clemency Canning” and called a “humanity-pre-
tender.” 37 But there were others who were profoundly
shocked, and their contemporary comments are^ of interest
in understanding the minority opinion in this country.
Richard Cobden was not at that time a member of the
' House of Commons, and in a letter dated October 16th,
1857, lie congratulates himself on the fact. ‘ This crisis
in the East,” he writes, “makes me very grateful for the
accident . . . for the more I reflect on it, the less do I
feel able to take any part which would harmonize with the
*. views and prejudices of the British public. 38
Cobden ventured the opinion that “the religious people
who now tell us that we must hold India to convert it,
ought, I should think, to be convinced by what has passed
that sending red coats as well as black to Christianize
- a people is not the most likely way to insure the blessings
of God on our missionary efforts.”
4
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
“Unfortunately for me I can’t even co-operate with
those who seek to ‘reform’ India, for I have no faith in
the power of England to govern that country at all
permanently ; and though I should like to see the Company
abolished- — because that is a screen between the English
nation and a full sight of its awful responsibilities— yet
I do not believe in the possibility of the Grown governing
India under the control of Parliament. If the House of
Commons were to renounce all responsibility for domestic
legislation, and give itself exclusively to the task of
governing one hundred millions of Asiatics, it would fail.
Hindoostan must be ruled by those who live on that side
of the globe. Its people will prefer to be ruled badly —
according to our notions — by its own colour, kith and kin,
than to submit to the humiliation of being better governed
by a succession of transient intruders from the Antipodes.”
Cobden was “dumbfounded at the reflection that after
a century of intercourse with us, the natives of India
suddenly exhibit themselves greater savages than any of
the North American Indians. . . . It is clear that they
cannot have been inspired with either love or respect by
what they have seen of the English.” He saw that Indians
must be inspired with “resentment, not unmixed with
contempt” for their British rulers, and that it was “im-
possible that a people can permanently be used for their
own obvious and conscious degradation. The entire
scheme of our Indian rule is based on the assumption that
the natives will be willing instruments of their own
humiliation.” 30
In the same letter Cobden tells Bright of some ladies he
had met, recently returned from India. They were wives
of British officers in Indian (native) regiments, and
commonly referred to Indians as “niggers.” One had
congratulated herself on her broad-mindedness because she
allowed an Indian officer to sit down in her presence when
lie came to her husband for orders. Such things, wrote
Cobden, would be bearable if the English in India “dis-
played exalted virtues and high intellectual powers,” but
he feared the reverse was the case. 4 0
Horrified at the “almost indiscriminate slaughter with
85
THE REVOLT OF I 857
which every commissioned officer and his drum-head court
are visiting the Sepoys,” 41 Cobden saw no future for
India but “undisguised despotism.” He feared divine
retribution for “the bloody deeds now being enacted,”
arising “from our own original aggression upon distant
and unoffending communities,” and he deplored the tone
of “our midclle-class journals and speakers, calling for
the destruction of Delhi and the indiscriminate massacre
of prisoners.” However, he deemed himself fortunate in
having to make no public pronouncement upon the matter,
“for I could not do justice to my convictions and possess
the confidence of any constituency in the country,” and
he concludes that he is happy in being left to his pigs and
sheep which “are not labouring under any such delusions.” 42
Cobden’s Free Trade associates, however, were of a very
different mind. “The manufacturers of Yorkshire and
Lancashire,” he wrote to Colonel Fitzmayer, “look upon
India and China as a field of enterprises which can only be
kept open to them by force.” 43 Their argument was “that
unless we occupied India there would be no trade with
that country, or that someone else would monopolise it.
Protest seemed entirely futile against the consequent
“enthusiasm for reconquering and Christianizing India,
and Cobden in vain reflected upon the civilisation, and
commerce of India “before Englishmen took to wearing
breeches.”
There is a memorable and prophetic passage in this
letter to Colonel Fitzmayer which brings us curiously near
to the events of the present day. In it Cobden expresses
his fear that habits of repression may one day find expression
at the expense of the inhabitants of Bolton or Oldham.
He visualises the “passionate multitude” facing “the middle
classes and the Horse Guards,” and foretells that those
“who now cry for the destruction of Delhi would not be
more merciful to tire bricks and mortar of Lancashire.” 44
Others there were who in 1857 took a despondent view
of the future, based upon uneasy memories of the past.
The words of a previous British administrator in Bengal may
have been recalled that “the fundamental principle of
the English has been to make the whole Indian nation
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
ferment, in every possible way, to the interests and
urlils of themselves. They have been taxed to the utmost
n ; every successive province, as it has fallen into our
v.rssion, has been made a field for higher exaction. . . 46
The following year the Bill for the abolition of the
power of the Bast India Company was introduced
lo the House of Commons by the Government. John
light, who had always opposed the Company’s rule, spoke
Upiently in that year of the grievances inherited from the
uni which it was the duty of the new administration to
i move.
“What is it we have to complain of in India? What
is it that the people of India, if they spoke by my mouth,
have to complain of? They would tell the House that, as
•i iuIc, throughout almost all the Presidencies, and
throughout those Presidencies most of which have been
longest under British rule, the cultivators of the soil,
(lie great body of the population of India, are in a con-
dition of great impoverishment, of great dejection, and
id great suffering. I have, on former occasions, quoted
lo the House the report of a Committee which I obtained
ten years ago, upon which sat several members of the
Court of Directors ; and they all agreed to report as much
;is I have now stated to the House — the report being
confined chiefly to the Presidencies of Bombay and
Madras. If I were now submitting the case of the popu-
lation of India, I would say that the taxes of India are
more onerous and oppressive than the taxes of any other
country in the world. I think I could demonstrate that
proposition to the House. I would show that industry
is neglected by the Government to a greater extent
probably than is the case in any other country in the
world which has been for any length of time under what
is teimed a civilized and Christian Government. I should
be able to show from the notes and memoranda of eminent
men in India — of the Governor of Bengal, Mr. Halliday,
for example that there is not, and never has been, in
any country pretending to be civilised, a condition of
things to be compared with that which exists under
the police administration of the province of Bengal.
With regard to the courts of justice I may say the same
thing. I could quote passages from books written in
THE REVOLT OF I 8 5 7 87
favour of the Company with all the bias which the
strongest friends of the Company can have, in which
the writers declare that, precisely in proportion as
English courts of justice have extended, have perjury,
and all the evils which perjury introduces into the
administration of justice, prevailed throughout the
Presidencies of India. With regard to public works, if
I were speaking for the natives of India, I would state
this fact, that in a single English county there are more
roads — more travelablc roads — than are to be found in
the whole of India; and I would say also that the single
city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with
the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money
than the East India Company have spent in fourteen
years, from 1834 to 1848, in public works of every kind
throughout the whole of its vast dominions. I would say
that the real activity of the Indian Government has been
an activity of conquest and annexation — of conquest
and annexation which after a time has led to a fearful
catastrophe which has enforced on the House an attention
to the question of India, which but for that catastrophe
I fear the House would not have given it. . . . ” 4a
Plow much attention Parliament was seriously giving
to India we may judge from Cobden’s remark in the same
year: “Since I have been in London, I have heard scarcely
a word about the best mode of governing the millions of
India. The only talk is about the chance of turning out one
Ministry and bringing in another.” 47 Cobden saw further
than Bright, and drew an ironical contrast between the
indignation of his countrymen over despotism in other
parts of the world and their horror at their own standards
of criticism being applied to themselves. To the great
Free Trader this showed a lamentable lack of “the science
of self knowledge,” for which the nation must some day
pay the price. 48
Cobden could never bring himself to consider the details
of administration because he regarded the situation as
hopeless and based on wrong premises. He regarded the
British occupation of India as contrary to the laws of
nature, which were bound to assert themselves eventually
to the discomfiture of the conquerors, “leaving the Hindoos
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
(he enjoyment of the climate to which their complexion
U united.” 48 But this process was to be delayed, for reasons
Inch will become increasingly apparent in the next
Inipter; and in the meanwhile the lofty aspirations of
i v.ingelical imperialism found perfect harmony with com-
mercial interests.
'I'll is synthesis was embodied in Herbert Edwardes, who
was Commissioner at Peshawar during the Mutiny and
"leaned strongly to the view that Providence had placed
India in British hands in order that the people might be
Christianized”; 80 a view which appears to have been
n hared by Lord Palmerston himself.
"Till India is leavened with Christianity she will be
unfit for freedom. When India is leavened with
Christianity she will be unfit for anything less ; and
England may then . . . leave the stately daughter
she has reared to walk the future with a free imperial
step. I firmly believe this is what God meant England
to do with India.”
Such was the pious hope of Herbert Edwardes, which
might also have been called the Last Will and Testament
of the East India Company. Their eternal tabernacles
received them in 1858 and India became the property
Of the British Crown. 61
NOTES
1 The thugs were an Indian organisation which practised the doctrine
of George Sorrow’s recruiting sergeant upon the rest of society. They
were sufliciently in advance of their time to have a religious motive
for robbery and murder.
* The abolition of Sati had long been demanded by a growing section
of Hindu opinion. Akbar had taken measures against it (see Chapter 1 )
and the Portuguese Governor of Goa who abolished it in the early
sixteenth century was highly honoured in India on this account in
spite of his numerous crimes.
3 Seeley’s Expansion of England. Quoted by Dutt, Vol IT, p, 31.
1 The Bankruptcy of India, by H. M, Hyndman, (London, 1887.)
* This Europeanisation was criticised even earlier, as we have noted,
by Munro and others. Even Sir John Strachey remarked that “The
Lord Chancellor did not give the native judges too high a character
when he said in the House of Lords in 1 683 . . . that in respect of
THE REVOLT OF 1857 89
integrity, of learning, knowledge, of the soundness and the satisfactory
character of the judgments arrived at, the judgments of the native
judges were quite as good as those of the English." (India, p. 162.)
* “No Mahratha invasion," wrote Macaulay in his Essay on Warren
Hastings, “ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad
of English lawyers." This was with reference to the Supreme Court,
whose justice, according to Macaulay, was worse than the injustice of
former oppressors.
’ Quoted by Hyndman in The Bankruptcy of India. Sleeman, though
opposed to annexation, was in favour of drastic reforms in the adminis-
tration of Oudh.
8 Macaulay in his History of England (Chapter II) has an interesting
digression on this subject, followed by a significant footnote (dated 1857)
in which he remarks: “I am happy to say that, since this passage was
written, the territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King
of Oudh have been added to the British dominions.” He could hardly
have chosen a less appropriate moment for self-congratulation.
* Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, by Thompson and Garratt.
Warren Hastings in 1744 had opposed the introduction of the English
judicial system as a cruel injustice to Indians, to whom he asserted that
it was unintelligible.
10 Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India . As an example the
authors claim that “During Lake’s Laswari campaign, whole popula-
tions lied in terror, not from the soldiery, but from the High Court
that was believed to be accompanying them." The Cambridge Shorter
History (p. (138) explains that “the taking of oaths was a thing which
the respectable Hindu had never been able to stomach.” It cites
Frederick Shore’s statement, “after long judicial experience" that if a
Hindu gave evidence in a British Court it wa 3 “presumptive evidence
against the respectability of his character."
11 More will be said of the Penal Code in a later chapter.
Macaulay was in the long line of British statesmen who found in the
administration of India a cure for their financial difficulties. “No
doubt prudential motives,” wrote H. H. Milman, “and those of no
ungenerous prudence, influenced his determination. By a few years
of economy, careful but not illiberal, he might make a provision for his
future life.” (Milman’s biographical note to Macaulay’s History oj
England.) He had formerly earned only £200 a year and went to India
on account of his father’s failure in business.
18 Dutt, Vol II, p. 223.
The Oxford History of India (p. 722) says that the rising “was not
confined to the troops. Discontent and unrest were widely prevalent
among the civil population, and in several places the populace rose
before the sepoys at those stations mutinied.”
13 Chapalis are Hat round cakes of unleavened bread. Regarding this
story H. H. Dodwell writes in the Cambridge Shorter History that “no
explanation of this has ever been discovered.”
11 Cambridge Shorter History , p. 738. Disraeli, speaking on July 27th,
1857, said that “he was persuaded that the mutineers of the Bengal
army were not so much the avengers of professional grievances as the
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
exponents of general discontent.” (Quoted by Horrabin in his Short
History of the British Empire .)
1S Dutt, Vol II, p, 15.
14 Dutt, Vol II, p. 16, Thompson and Garratt confirm this. “The
Sikhs were practically deserted by their commanders, Lai Singh and
Tej Singh, who were both in correspondence with the enemy.” Rise
and Fulfilment of British Rule in India , p. 371.
15 “The British cavalry, advancing without the support of guns,
were forced to a retreat which was soon converted into a flight; the
colours of three regiments and four guns were captured by the Sikhs;
and a total loss of 89 officers and 2,350 men was the end of a hastv and
ill-judged attack.” (Dutt, Vol II, p. 22.)
1B Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 23. Dutt points out that Sir Henry
Lawrence, who had been British Resident at the Sikh Court since 1846,
protested against the annexation.
I ■ British Imperialism in India, by Joan Beauchamp. Zemindars are
landlords. The zemindar i system will be discussed in a later chapter.
“ This legal fiction was considered to be highly desirable in order
to give a constitutional appearance to the Company’s activities.
II Cambridge Shorter History , p. 743.
11 from the outset of the revolt mutineers were summarily shot on
being captured by Government forces. The rebels, 011 tire other hand,
massacred all the Luropeans in Delhi and in some other towns.
,a Cambridge Shorter History , p. 748.
1 * Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India , by Thompson and Garratt.
Montgomery Martin, in his Rise and Progress of the Indian Mutiny says
that ^ all the city people found within the walls were bayoneted on the
spot.” They were “not mutineers, but residents of the city.”
2 * This was the celebrated Major Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, one
of the heroes of the Mutiny. He captured the three princes and shot
them himself. An account of the matter is to be found in The Life of
Hodson , by L. G. Trotter, who says: “It might have been best, for certain
reasons, had the slaughtered princes lived to undergo a regular trial.
But 1 lodson had gleaned from fairly trustworthy sources evidence
which convinced him of their guilt.” Consequently a trial was not
considered necessavy, and (as Captain I rotter points out) the murder
“was hailed with unquestioning approval by every Englishman in
Uppei India. Sir R. Montgomery wrote to Hodson saying: “I hope
you will bag many more,” and General Thomason “often wondered
at Hodson never having been made a V.C. for this.”
18 Cambridge Shorter History of India , pp. 750-751. In the country
around Allahabad, writes Mr. Dociwell, “many villages were burnt for
harbouring Sepoys,” and Major Renaucl, who was sent to relieve
Cawnpore, “received instructions for the extermination of every
mutinous Sepoy he could find.” Havelock’s advance guard on the
march to Cawnpore carried out executions which Sir William Russell
described as mdisciiminate to the last degree.” 1 wclve men were
executed because their faces were “turned the wrong way” when they
were met on the inarch, and all villages were burnt where Havelock
THE REVOLT OF 1857 91
halted. Sir William points out that these events took place before
the Cawnpore massacre. (My Diary in India , by Sir William Russell.)
27 Letter to John Bright, dated Aug. 24th, 1857. From John Morley’s
Life of Richard Cobden (1879).
Cambridge Shorter History of India , p. 752.
2S Sir William Russell records in My Diary in India that “when Neill
marched from Allahabad” (to the relief of Cawnpore) “his executions
were so numerous ami so indiscriminate, that one of the officers attached
to his column had to remonstrate with him on the ground that if he
depopulated the country he could get no supplies for the men.”
30 “Supplications to the Divine Majesty, imploring His Blessing and
Assistance on our Arms for the Restoration of tranquillity in India,”
(1857). Prayer issued for Morning Service.
The Company’s fortunes were not, however, “in one bottom trusted,”
for they also secured the support of the God of Islam. The British
Government obtained a finnan from the Turkish Sultan (Abdul Majeed)
calling upon the Mussalmans of India to make their peace with the
English, who were friends of the Khilafa.
31 The quotations given here are from contemporary records published
by Kaye and Malleson in their History of the Mutiny (Vol II).
Sir William Russell, who was then correspondent of The Times in
India, has recorded in his diary how women, children and old people
were burnt to death in villages by British forces, how Mohammedans
were sewn in pig-skins and smeared with pork fat before execution, etc.
(My Diary in India , by Sir Wm, Russell.)
3 2 *1 he work of Col. Malleson and Sir John Kaye is generally con-
sidered the standard history of the Mutiny. It is not, however, without
a pro-British bias.
33 Holmes (History of the Mutiny) quoted by Joan Beauchamp in
British Imperialism in India. Cp. footnote on p. 27 re the Moplah
Rebellion.
34 Cambridge Shorter History of India , p. 756.
35 “England,” an Ode by A. C. Swinburne.
34 Cambridge Shorter History of India , p. 75G.
37 See Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India , p. 462,
34 Letter to Mr. Ashworth, published in Morley’s Life of Cobdai ,
(p. 670, Eleventh Ed.).
30 Letter to John Bright, August 24th, 1857. (Life of Cobden , pp. 672,
et seq.)
10 Morley in a footnote to this letter quotes from Lord Elgin’s
Journals (Aug. 21, 1857): “I have seldom from man or woman since
1 came to the East heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the
hypothesis that Christianity had ever come into the world. Detestation,
contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the
object.” (Life of Cobden, p. G74.)
41 A British officer, Lt. Majendie, (quoted by Thompson in The
Other Side of the Medal) said that at Lucknow “the unfortunate who fell
into the hands of our troops was made short- work of — Sepoy or Oudh
villager, it mattered not — no questions were asked; his skin was black,
and did not that suffice?”
I
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
'* Letter to Bright, Sept. 22nd, 1857.
" Letter of Oct. 18th. The reference to China concerns the efforts
1 1 .11 ;»t Britain to make the Chinese (who had excluded opium from
ports) buy the opium which was grown under Government
hi poly in India. The occasion of the most recent aggression had
|i»mi the seizure of pirates on board a British ship by the Chinese
Hnvnnment* This had led to an ultimatum and unprovoked attack
n (he Chinese by the British Governor of Hongkong (a well-known
I mi I'rader and member of the Peace Society named Sir John
Mnwiing). The result was the war of 1857* to which further reference
ill l )c made in Chapter VII.
41 "Is it possible,” asks Cobden in another letter (to G. Combe,
r 1 .1 y 16th, 1858) “that we can play the part of despot and butcher
tin ir without finding our character deteriorated at home?”
*'■ Notes on Indian Affairs, by the Hon. F. J. Shore (London 1837).
“ Bright’s speech in the House, June 24th, 1858. Quoted by William
Kohcrtson in his Life and Times of the Jit. Hon. John Bright.
*’ Letter to G. Combe, May iGth, 1858.
" Letter to Mr. Gilpin, March 28th, 1858.
11 Letter to William i largrcavcs, Aug. 4th, i860. Hundred per cent
1 lobdcnism probably represents the furthest extreme to which the
ilut n ine of laissez-faire was ever carried by any practical politician of
nineteenth century Liberalism. It was doomed by the renewed struggle
<1 colonial markets which arose inevitably at the end of the century.
Cambridge Shorter History of India, p. 716. John Lawrence is
iiMoeiated with the same leanings. Palmerston, at a banquet given in
honour of Canning when he was appointed Governor-General, said
that “perhaps it might be our lot to confer on the countless millions of
India a higher and nobler gift than any mere human knowledge.”
' 1 It was not until 1877 that a British monarch assumed the title of
“ Empress of India.” This was not an administrative act of any import-
ance, but an effort to keep pace with Germany, where an empire had
i nine into existence; for in extravagance of conception Disraeli was
nnt to be outbid by Bismarck. Gladstone, on the other hand, was
horrified at this open confession of autocracy. (See Dutt, Vol II, p. 425.)
CHAPTER VI
APPLYING THE LANCET
The “liquidation” — to use a modem expression — of the
revolt of 1857 left the British in undisputed mastery of the
entire country. Numerous princes indeed remained, but
of these an ex-administrator of India wrote many years
later;
“It would perhaps be ungenerous to probe too
narrowly the dependent position and consequent invol-
untary action of the feudatory chiefs. They are power-
less to protect themselves. . . . Technically independent
of (lie suzerainty of the Empire, they are practically
held in complete subjection. Their rank and honours
depend on the pleasure of a British Resident at their
Court, and on the secret and irresponsible mandates of
a Foreign Office at Simla.” 1
With the assumption of direct authority by the Crown
in 1858 an era begins of complete despotism such as the
Mughals themselves might have envied.
Reference has already been made to the lact that the
Crown look over the responsibility of the East India
Company’s debts in cancellation of the loans made to the
British Government by the Company . 2 By this arrange-
ment the British Government became released of its debt,
whilst that of the Company remained chargeable to the
Indian revenues. The public debt ol India continued to
increase under the administration ol the Crown, and its
nature and extent have become matters of a political
controversy which it may be useful at this stage to examine.
Quite the ablest analysis of this matter is to be found in
a well-documented report which was drawn up in 193 1
by a Select Committee of the All India National Congress . 3
The whole problem is here examined from the ethical as
93
I,| THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
well as the judicial standpoint, and with regard both to
i he legitimacy of certain charges and the manner of expendi-
l urc in the case of productive loans.
Shortly after the Crown assumed its responsibilities Sir
i icorge Wingate wrote that the Government of India
"has been, from the first, simply a department of the
llritish Government.” He argued that “the East India
( Inmpany was simply a convenient screen under cover of
which the Ministry was able to make use of the revenues
and resources of India.” The country, he said, “has been
i tiled as a conquered country, according to the views ol
successive British administrations. The Indian debt has
ically been incurred by the Government of this country;
and how, then, can we possibly shake ourselves free of
Indian liabilities?” 4
We have already observed the growing assumption of
authority on the part of the British Parliament in its
dealings with the Company. Increasingly this took the form,
not merely of regulating its internal administration and
Imances, but of using the vast resources of this mercantile
empire as an instrument of foreign policy. Wars were
waged by the Company at the command of the Govern-
ment for interests which concerned neither India nor her
merchant rulers, and items of expenditure incurred in such .
< onnections were frequently matters of dispute between the
< lornpany and the British Treasury. Among such disputed
items, which were nevertheless charged to the Company
and ultimately to the Indian revenues, were numerous
military and naval expeditions to such places as Java and
the Moluccas, also stores sent to St. Helena and the Cape
of Good Hope. 6
The liberality of the Company itself in rewarding its
officials would have been more praiseworthy if the money
of which it disposed had not come from a starving peasantry
which, had it been consulted in the matter, might have
found more urgent uses for such generous bequests, lhe
Marquis of Cornwallis received a pension of £5,000 a year.
Warren Hastings, in addition to his legal expenses and a
loan without interest of £50,000, was given £4,000 a year
on his retirement. Similar pensions were received by
APPLYING THE LANCET
95
Wellesley, Hardinge, Daliiousie and others, while the
Marquis of Hastings received £60,000 as a lump sum in
addition to his wages. 6
The first major items of expenditure which are to-day
queried in India are the debts arising from various external
wars, fought beyond the frontiers of India for British
interests. Of the first Afghan War, for example, Sir George
Wingate wrote:
“Most of our Asiatic Wars with countries beyond the
limits of our Empire have been carried on by means of
the military and monetary resources of the Government
of India, though the objects of those wars were, in some
instances, purely British, and in others but remotely
connected with the interests of India. They were under-
taken by the Government of India in obedience to
instructions received from the British Ministries of the
time acting through the Presidents of the Board of Control ;
and for all consequences they have involved, the British
Nation is clearly responsible. The Afghan War was one
of the most notable of these, and it is now well understood
that this war was undertaken by the British Government
without consulting the Court of Directors, and in oppo-
sition to their views. It was, in fact, a purely British
war, but notwithstanding this, and in defiance of a
solemn expression of unanimous opinion on the part of
the Court of Directors, and of a resolution of the Court
of Proprietors of the East India Company that the whole
cost of the war should not be thrown upon the Indian
finances, the ministry required this to be done. By this
injustice, ten millions were added to the debt of India.
The late Persian War was proclaimed by the British
Ministry in pursuance of a policy with which India
had no real concern; but the war not the less, was
carried on by the troops and resources of India, and
one half only of the total cost was subsequently settled
to be borne by the revenues of this country. India,
in fact, has been required to furnish men and means
for carrying on all our Asiatic Wars, and has never in
any instance, been paid a full equivalent for the
assistance thus rendered which furnishes irrefragable
proof of the one-sided and selfish character of our
Indian Policy.” 7
,,() the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
The cost of this war, however (“an unprovoked war,”
in Professor Thompson rightly describes it) 8 was placed
ill ion the Indian peasant, involving the country in a dead
loss of £15,000,000. In the same year the Chairman and
Deputy Chairman of the Company protested against the
-■■.sumption that this cost should be allocated uniquely to
India:
“ . . .It has become the duty of the Court to claim
on behalf of India,” they wrote in 1842, “to be relieved
from any charges to- which, upon a fair and impartial
view, she may not justly be liable; and whilst it is very
far from the Court’s desire prematurely to raise any
questions regarding the objects of the expeditions beyond
the Indus, yet they are constrained to submit that, in
no view of the case it can be just or expedient that the
whole charge of these operations, including that of the
military reinforcements about to be effected, should be
thrown on the finances of India.” a
Other charges incurred by the Company at the com-
mand of the Crown, included the first two Burmese Wars,
estimated at £14,000,000 and various expeditions to China,
Persia, etc., amounting to £6,000,000.
The cost of suppressing the revolt of 1857 was forty
million pounds. This cost also was charged to India and
the allocation was described by Sir George Wingate as
“unparalleled meanness”; for (said he) “we have sought to
transfer the entire cost of a perilous struggle to uphold our
own empire to (he overburdened finances of India.” 10
Discussing the question in further detail Sir George said:
“In the crisis of the Indian Mutiny, then, and with
the Indian finances reduced to an almost desperate
condition, Great Britain has not only required India to
pay for the whole of the extra regiments sent to that
country, from the date of their leaving these shores, but
has demanded back the money disbursed on account
of these regiments for the last six months of their service
in this country, previous to sailing for India. There
may he good reasons for the adoption of a course that
reminds one of Brennus throwing his sword into the
APPLYING THE LANCET
97
scale, which determined the ransom of the vanquished
Romans; but as we had the services of the men, and as
their pay for the period in question was spent in sup-
porting the industrious classes of this Kingdom, and could
have been of no benefit to India, we are laid under a
moral obligation to explain the principles of justice, or
of honest dealing, by which we have been guided in
throwing this additional heavy charge upon the over-
burdened finances of India.
“The cost of transporting British troops to India is
also charged upon the Indian revenues; but as this outlay
is expended upon the British shipowners and is made
for the maintenance of the British authority in India,
it would clearly be reasonable and fair that the charge,
as in the case of troops sent to any' of our other
foreign dependencies, should be borne by the British
Exchequer.” 11
In 1872 the Secretary of State for India, replying to a
letter from the War Office, made a further significant
comment upon this particular debt:
“The extraordinary case of the great mutiny of 1857-
1O58 is the only case which gives even plausibility to the
War Office representation; in that case, altogether
unprecedented in this history of British India, the
Imperial Government was compelled, under the immi-
nent risk of losing its Empire in the East, to make one of
those efforts which are at times inseparable from Imperial
powers and Imperial obligations. It must be remembered,
however, that if similar exertions had been called for .by
war in any other part of Her Majesty’s dominions not
only must the same effort have been made, but the burden
of it must necessarily have been borne, in greater part,
at least, by the Imperial Government; but, in regard
to the Indian Mutiny, no part of the cost of suppressing
it was allowed to fall on the Imperial Exchequer; the
whole of it was or is now being defrayed by the Indian
Taxpayer.” 1 2
The redemption of the Capital Stock of the Company
lias already been referred to. Twelve million pounds was
the sum at which the Company’s stock was eventually
purchased in 1874, and interest at 10 1 per cent on the shares
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
was paid from the Indian revenues during the sixteen
years that intervened between the end of the Company’s
Mile and the purchase of its stock. 13 For this purpose a
loan was raised, also chargeable upon India, “and the Indian
people are thus virtually paying dividends to this day on
l he stock of an extinct Company, in the shape of interest
on Debt.” 14
The problem of debt settlements which is raised by any
t onsideration of this subject is, of course, an involved one.
If we go back far enough we shall find that inestimable
.i mounts were taken from India in the early years of the
( lompany’s conquests.
“The savings of human beings for centuries, ” wrote
Urook Adams, “the English seized and took to London
as the Romans had taken the spoils of Greece and Pontus
to Italy. What the value of the treasure was no man
can estimate, but it must have been millions of pounds
-a vast sum in proportion to the stock of precious metals
then owned in Europe.” 16
In considering the justice of debts inherited from the
fast India Company, Indians to-day naturally wish to
h| [- set the huge fortunes extracted from India while these
itame debts were being incurred. 16 How enormous these
fortunes were can be judged fiom a few individual examples.
Clive’s annual income was estimated by Sir John Malcolm,
wl 10 (as Macaulay has pointed out) was anxious to state
I I as low as possible, at £40,000. 17 Macaulay acids that
tin omes of this size were as rare at the accession ol George
III as incomes of £100,000 in his own time; and the value
ol money has since decreased considerably further. “Wc
may safely affirm,” wrote Macaulay, “that no Englishman
who started with nothing has ever, in any line of life,
1 rented such a fortune at the early age of thirty-four.”
Writing in 1836, the same authority estimated that
"seventy years ago, less money was brought home from
l he East than in our time”; though in 1836 this was dis-
tributed among a much larger number of individuals. 18
fortunes such as those of Clive were no longer possible,
but a "writer” in the Company could still expect, according
APPLYING THE LANCET
99
to Macaulay, to amass a fortune of £30,000 and retire at
the early age of forty-five. 18 No complete or exact figure
will ever be discovered for this continual drain of wealth
which began with the conquest of Indian territories; 20
but the question which the Indian nationalist poses to-day
is whether India is to continue to pay interest on loans,
even if they were productively employed, when these
loans were largely balanced, if not vastly exceeded, by
sums taken from the country at the same time by methods
of extortion. 2 1
This problem must be carefully examined in order to
understand many present-day problems of Indian finance
and politics. The Indian nationalist, as distinct from the
Indian socialist, does not base his case upon a repudiation
of unearned incomes from interest and dividends. For the
sake of argument he is even prepared to set aside his claim
that no debts and financial commitments incurred by an
alien government without the consent of the people can
be binding upon them. He points rather to the actual
sums owing, to the purposes for which they were borrowed,
and to his own counter-claims, and asks upon what purely
commercial grounds India can to-day be called a “debtor
country.” 22
The total debt of the East India Company by 1858 was
rather over £69,000,000. Against this sum may be set
the cost of the first Afghan War, two wars in Burma and
expeditions to China, Persia, etc. These wars, all charged
to India, were (as wc have already noted) conducted in
purely British interests, and cost together about £35,000,000.
Adding to this the cost of the Mutiny (£40,000,000) and
the sums raised to pay off the capital and interest of the
East India Company (£37,200,000) we have a total ot
£112,200,000. Thus, without taking into account those
* unknown hoards which were extracted unofficially or in
the form of salaries, pensions, etc., in the hundred years
following the Battle of Plassey, and setting aside the Com-
pany’s dividends up to 1833, we have a clear balance of
over £40,000,000 in favour of India at the time when the
Company’s government was liquidated. 23
The problem as posed by the Indian nationalist to-day
II
too
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
may therefore be stated under two heads. Firstly, to what
extent can the debt inherited from the East India Company
and accumulated since the Company’s dissolution be
justified as an expenditure incurred on behalf of the people
ol India and in their demonstrable interests? In the second
place the nationalist asks to what extent this debt is bal-
anced (assuming it to be justifiable) by the vast sums
extorted from India. 24
It is often argued that no consideration of financial
obligations as between Britain and India can take into
account the extortions of the East India Company and its
servants, since these are now matters of the past. This
argument would carry more weight in India if Indian
debts were treated in the same manner. The nationalist
contends that if his claims for compensation are to be set
aside in this way, it is only reasonable that debts incurred
during the same period (and without popular consent)
should also be regarded as matters ol the remote past for
which present-day India can accept no responsibility. The
present arrangement, however, whilst wiping out any
Indian claim for compensation, enforces the payment of
interest on loans; the principle being that Britain keeps what
it has got whilst India continues to pay for what it never
had. As the Congress Committee’s report very logically
puts the problem:
The debt as left by the East India Company is not
all subsisting bodily at the present: moment, portions
having been discharged in the meanwhile. As the
aggregate ol the Debt incurred by that corporation was
in lact charged to India; and as the Debt of India was
for a long time in the shape of non-terminable obligations,
which are still in existence as part of the Indian Public
Debt, there is no reason why the Debt left by the Com-
pany, and discharged out of the revenues of India, both
as to Principal and Interest, should not be considered
by this Committee. The reason is quite simple. Had
this Debt not been there, we should have had pro-
portionately smaller obligations to deal with, our resources
would to that extent have been better, and altogether
our present obligations correspondingly less,” 26
APPLYING THE LANCET IOI
The assumption of direct rule by the Crown in 1858
marks, as we have seen, the culmination of a long process
by which the original interests of the Company were super-
seded by the broader commercial interests which domin-
ated nineteenth century Britain. We have already noticed
how these interests successfully controlled the fiscal policy
and reduced India to the status of a market for British
manufactures and a source of raw materials and foodstuffs.
It was not, however, till the Company’s rule came to an
end that British industrialists were able to make effective
progress in the next stage of economic imperialism, which
is the development of a colony by means of railways and
other means of communication.
“At the time of the Mutiny,” writes W. R. Kermack,
“there were only 273 miles of railway in India and 4,044
miles of telegraph,” 24 This state of affairs was now to
be rapidly rectified. British capitalism was already passing
beyond the stage where it was solely concerned with
finding markets for British goods; for the fortunes made
in the early part of the century had now to be re-invested.
The internal development of India solved both problems;
for while the building of railways gave greater access to
the interior and facilitated the sale of our manufactured
goods, it also provided a splendid field of investment for
British capital. 27 The new communications were at the
same time to bring Indian raw materials to the ports;
and an increasing drain of food-grains and other products
of agriculture was to pay the cost of the new policy.
The history of British railway policy in India is that of
probably the largest item in the existing public debt ol
the country. By 1931 the total capital expenditure by the
State on railways stood at nearly £600,000,000. According
to Sir John Strachcy’s Finance and Public Works of India
the railways built by State enterprise between 1869 and
1881 involved a total outlay of £26,689,000. The rest of
the railways were, in the great majority of cases, built
by Guaranteed Companies, most of them having since
been purchased by the Government. 28
The nature of the contracts by which these Guaranteed
Companies built Indian railways is probably unique in
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
00
•" history of financial operations. The Company would
»• guaranteed an interest on its capital by the Indian
ovcrnment at a rate which was itself excessive when
umpared with the prevailing market rates. 29 Free land
-mid be granted by the Government, thus obviating the
iiiicipal difficulty with which the railway speculator
i Lilly has to contend. If and when the railway showed
profit, that profit was the property of the Company; but
Ix-n there was a loss the Company’s dividends would be
•id from the Indian taxes. 30 Thus with the minimum of
'Ml to themselves, a group of financiers could, without
1 ■ 1 y of the normal risks of speculation, invest their capital
with the certainty of a minimum dividend and the hope
"I a surplus. The people of India, who were their sleeping
I"' luers in this astonishing arrangement, were compelled
l" balance the shareholder’s losses and to produce, in
mid ition, substantial dividends for them out of their
t ilXCS. 0;
Such a financial arrangement might well prove shocking
to the advocates of private enterprise and to those who
' -vour public ownership, for it combined the disadvan-
i 'if.es of both without the benefits of either. Those who
"•mlcmn public ownership generally urge that it leads
In n lack of initiative; but nothing could be more conducive
In I his result than a system which offered a guaranteed
Interest to bodies of individual speculators responsible to
mi one but themselves. Since interest was promised to
d.c in at a fixed percentage upon capital expenditure (no
"Miter how extravagantly spent) they could have no
Incentive to economy on their own behalf. On the other
I' md, the absence of public ownership removed from these
teculators (if the term may be used for those who take no
■iks) any necessity for economy in public interest. As to
' In benefits of the system, the Indian public had neither
(tic advantage of owning the railways for which it paid (he
(Hales, nor the satisfaction of knowing that they were run
• Mu iently by those who would have to pay for their own
The usual case for private enterprise — that those
Who take the risk should also take the profit — was, in fact,
ipletely reversed by a procedure which put a premium
*
i
APPLYING THE LANCET 103
upon extravagance and used the resources of the State
to finance a private monopoly.
An additional evil arose from the clause, inserted in these
railway contracts, that the State might purchase the rail-
way after a certain period of years. 31 Inevitably this
caused an artificial inflation of stock prices as the purchase
date drew near. According to one authority the waste-
fulness of the system was officially perceived in the early
years of the Crown Government, following the Mutiny. 32
Sir J. P. Grant, President of the Viceroy’s Council, objected
to the procedure as uneconomic, and the Finance Member
of the Council (Mr. Laing) pointed out that the Companies
looked exclusively to the Guarantee for their dividends.
In 1884 a Select Committee of Parliament examined a
number of witnesses who gave evidence on this subject.
Among these witnesses was General Sir Richard Strachey,
who said with regard to the Guarantee system:
“Not only has it been productive of wasted money,
but it also has created a very valuable property at the
expense of the taxpayers of India, which has passed into
the hands of third parties without their having incurred,
in any sort of way, any risk.” 33
As regards the disproportionate rate of interest paid under
the Guarantee, both Sir Richard Strachey and Mr. West-
land (afterwards Finance Minister of India) stated that if
the Government had built the railways itself it could have
borrowed at a cheaper rate. “The probability is,” said
Sir Richard, “in fact it is almost a certainty, that they could
have borrowed the money on better terms than the
Company.”
At an earlier enquiry a witness stated that “the contracts
are a perfect disgrace to whoever drew them up.”
“ This, said William Thornton, speaking as an expert,
. “is the necessary result of the way in which they are drawn
up . . . the undertakers of the railway, the Company,
are deprived of one of the great inducements to economy;
they know that whatever blunders they make, those
blunders will not prevent their getting full current interest
on their expenditure.” 34
10 i THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Similar evidence was offered by Lt, -Colonel Chesney,
who for six years had been auditor of the railway accounts.
“Railways began in India in 1848, when the first
stall of engineers were sent out. . . ■ These gentlemen
were sent out to mnkc r&ilwuys hiicI tlicre wds kind of
understanding that they were not to be controlled very
closely. . . . Nothing was known of the money expended
till the accounts were rendered. ... It was quite
understood that whatever was spent must be eventually
passed.” 36
The Right Honourable William Massey, who had been
Finance Minister of India under two Governors-General,
stated the matter even more bluntly. Accoiding to him,
“enormous sums were lavished, and the contractors had
no motive whatever for economy.”
“All the money came from the English capitalist,
and so long as lie was guaranteed 5 per cent on the
revenues of India it was immaterial to him whether the
funds that he lent were thrown into the Ilooghly or
converted into bricks and mortar.
Massey estimated the cost of the East Indian railway
at £30,000 per mile and said of it, “It seems to me that
they are the most extravagant works that were ever ^under-
taken.” Lord Lawrence himself, who as Governor-General
had condemned the system, reinforced this expert evidence
with the authority of his high office, and told the Parlia-
mentary Committee:
-P
“I think it is notorious in India amongst almost every
class that I ever heard talk on the subject, that the
railways have been extravagantly made; that they have
cost a great deal more than they are worth or ought to
have cost.
“With a guarantee of 5 per cent, capitalists will agree
to anything; they do not care really very much whether
it succeeds or fails; 5 per cent is such a good rate oi
interest that they are content to get that, and not iccilly
look after what is done.” 37
APPLYING THE LANCET 105
The figures of expenditure prove convincingly the justice
of such strictures. T he Congress Report gives a table showing
the cost per mile of twenty- five different railways, compiled
from figures supplied to the Select Committee of 1884.
This table shows that, as between the same types of rail-
ways (that is to say, railways of the same gauge and traversing
the same type of country) those constructed by the State
cost half the amount that was spent under the Guarantee
system. a 8 Even Sir Juland Danvers, who for several years
had held the post of Government Director of Railways in
India, and was not himself hostile to the Guarantee System,
admitted that
“the cost of lines now constructed” (that is to say, by the
State) “has been much less than the average cost of these
railways, which form the original main system. Instead
of £ 1 8,000 and £20,000 per mile we now see lines
constructed on the five feet six inches gauge for £4,000,
£5,000 and £9,000.” a0
As to the conditions which obtained in the construction
and management of these lines, the evidence of Lord
Lawrence is once more conclusive. In 1873 he told the
Parliamentary Committee:
<■
“The natives in my time (and I see little difference to
this tlay in spite of all the attempts of the Directors of
the Companies to improve the system) greatly com-
plained of their treatment on the railways; and I myself
believe that though it is difficult to prevent abuse of power
under such circumstances, yet the Government would be
more effective in thaL respect than the Companies. . .
On enquiry that I used to make in India, both official
and private, I was confirmed in the view that these
statements of the natives were to a considerable extent
true.” 10
That any policy could have been so long continued,
though condemned upon such high authority and by its
own manifest results, is something that can only be ex-
plained by the system of government under which India
was living. For over and above the authority of a British
Governor-General, armed with all the powers of the Great
I06 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Mughal, was the authority of a British Parliament, distant
and remote, concerned with the demands of a nascent
industrial oligarchy and determined to press those demands
to the utmost limits. This was clearly seen by Henry
Fawcett, whose name is to this day remembered in India
among the friends of the Indian people. Fawcett served on
i he Parliamentary Committee of 1873, and in his questions
to witnesses drew from them the admission that even the
Indian Government could not rectify such evils as it recog-
nised and was willing to combat, because of the vested
interests which controlled British political life.
“Do you think,” Fawcett asked Lord Lawrence, “con-
sidering that India is scarcely represented at all in this
House . . . and that the commercial classes of Kngland
are powerfully represented in it, that any Government
would, for one moment, be likely to resist an opposition,
brought to bear on them from people who have votes . . .?”
“I think not,” was the reply of the ex-Governor-General,
which he amplified later by defining the limitations of the
powers exercised by the Council of the Secretary of State
for India:
“I think the Council did act in many cases as a very
considerable buffer between the people pressing on
expenditure in India and the Secretary of State, and
in many ways helped the Secretary of Stale to resist that
pressure; but when it came to a very important matter,
in which the interests and the feelings of merchants in
England were enlisted, then I think the Council could
not resist with any effect.” 41
Fawcett in vain pointed out that the Secretary’s Council
was supposed to represent Indian interests and that its
members were paid from the Indian revenues for this very
purpose. The fiction of an Indian Government ruling the
country for the good of its people was shattered in one
sentence by the reply which he received from General
Strachey: “There is no doubt that that is the unfortunate
result of having a Despotic Government, managed in the
sort of way that the Government of India is; and, for myself,
I do not exactly see that there is any remedy for it.” 42
APPLYING THE LANCET IO7
The loss on the Indian railways is incalculable. Payments
of deficit in guaranteed interest alone account for about
£40,000,000, and this figure does not take into account
the value of free land given to the Guaranteed Companies
or the loss incurred by wasteful methods of construction.
This burden, however, was only one of many which weie
heaped on the Indian Exchequer during the nineteenth
century, and more particularly during the years of develop-
ment” which followed the assumption of direct control by
the Crown. The nature and cost of wars during this petiod
will be examined in the next chapter, but some mention
may be made here of the findings of the Welby Commission
with regard to some of the smaller items of expendituie
that were debited in the past to India.
The Welby Commission, 4 4 which published its report in
1900, examined a number of the incidental items of Indian
State expenditure; and many of these, though not large
in themselves, are indicative of the peculiar morality which
has been applied to the finances of that country. In some
cases, such as the maintenance of Aden, the Persian Mission,
and the Consular Establishments in China, the report of
the Welby Commission resulted in the reduction or abolition
of Indian payments; though in no case was there any refund
for payments which were thus admitted to have been unjust
or excessive. The case of the Red Sea and India Telegraph
Company is perhaps one of the most astonishing instances
recorded in the findings of the Commission, and it may
be taken as typical of the waste which has characterised
Indian administration from the first Guaranteed Railways
to the Bombay Development Scheme, by which some
j~ 1 ^000,000 were recently thrown into the Indian Ocean.
The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company was. formed
in 1898, with a guaranteed return oi 4! per cent on its
capital for a term of fifty years. The Company transmitted
messages for a few days, after which the line broke down.
The rest of the story may be told as recorded in the Report
of the Welby Commission:
“In 1861 an act was passed declaring that the guarantee
was not conditional upon the telegraph being in working
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
i iIit. By a further Act of 1862, the line having ceased
transmit messages was transferred to a new company;
ml the guarantee of the old company was converted
util an annuity of thirty-six thousand pounds for 46
>ittr$,” 46
lie Indian taxpayer provided half this pension, which
paid annually till 1908 to keep the shareholders from
1 ving. A final point worth mentioning among these
n Her, but very typical items, is that of the Ecclesiastical
mgcs. Though not large in itself, the sum of £200,000
1 annum which is still paid from the Indian revenues to
Mil nee the Christian Church is perhaps in some ways
I most scandalous of all the impositions which could
placed upon a population of which the overwhelming
!t|ority is non-Christian. 47 Even the small Christian
I I unity which has existed in and around Travancore since
pnitolic times derives no benefit from a contribution to the
iik church of the alien rulers which these Syrian Christians
I'. trd as heretical. The seven million pounds which has
it n contributed under this head during the past thirty-five
us is simply a tribute from the native people of India
lu the principal religious institution of their conquerors.
Instances such as these, which can be multiplied almost
IlHlcfl nitely, will make it clear that the direct exploitation
nl India did not by any means come to an end with the
Ciimpany’s rule. On the contrary, whilst other and more
Indirect methods were devised to extort wealth from the
iiiimtry, the Government itself remained, as in the time of
iliu Company, a means of filling English pockets with
Indian money. Noticing less, indeed, could be expected
nl .1 system of administration which fulfilled the prophecy
i'l John Stuart Mill by maintaining “the most complete
if spotism that could possibly exist." 48
To many this must have been a source of great satis-
I nt don. Even the rapid growth of the National Debt
idler 1858 meant secure and substantial interest for thousands
► ■I bondholders. There was also the political aspect of the
tli lit; for (as Horace Wilson pointed out nearly a hundred
years ago) “the inconveniences which it occasions are
fully compensated by the connection which it maintains
applying the lancet
109
between the Government and the fundholders a large
proportion of whom arc natives of the country, and who are
thus interested in the stability of the ruling power. *»
Thus the Indian capitalist was already, even in the days
of the Company, drawn into the orbit of imperialism, and
efforts were being made to interweave his interests with
those or the ruling race in such a way as to ensure his support
against revolution. And meanwhile a grow.ng tribute
from India to Britain told of an ever increasing number
of individuals in this country whose wealth depende
upon the taxation of Indian peasants. The total amount
of the ‘'Home Charges,” including pensions, upkeep of the
India Office, military stores and “capitation charges,
etc., plus interest on the sterling debt, averaged £.6,000,000
per annum during the last ten years of Queen Victoria s
SO Sir George Wingate may once more be cited
with regard to 011c of these charges, which became an
increasing burden to India during the years which followed
the period to which he refers*
“It would appear that when extra regiments are
despatched to India, as happened during the late dis-
turbances there, the pay of such troops for six months
previous to sailing is charged against the Indian revenues
and recovered as a debt due by the Government of India
to the British Army Pay Office. In the crisis of the
Indian Mutiny, and when Indian finances were reduced
Jo an almost Asperate condition, Great Britain not only
reel ui red India to pav for the whole of the extra i egiments
sent to that country from the day of tl.etr leaving these
shores, but has demanded back the money disbursed
on account of these regiments for the last six mont,^
service in this country previous to sailing for India.
This annual drain of sixteen million sterling constituted
one-fourth of the total revenue of India; 5 - and R. G. Uut ,
writing in 1903, was able to point out that it involved
a regular and growing tribute from a nation having an
average income of £1 a l.cad to a nation where the average
income was £42 a head. Nor was this the whole of the
contribution made; for in addition to the charges included
to
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
(i (his sixteen million there were the savings of British
initials from salaries grotesquely disproportionate to the
fcvrrage national income of India. How great the total
H .is or how great it is to-day it would be difficult to estimate
fKiintly; but it was calculated by Mr. J. M. Maclean,
M.P-, in 1873 to be at least £20,000,000 a year. 53
As early as 1838 Montgomery Martin had expressed his
*' irs with regard to the much smaller tribute exacted by the
I'.ast India Company. “I do not think it possible,” he had
nt i (ten, ‘‘for human ingenuity to avert entirely the evil
(* 111 x 15 of a continued drain.” 64 The Hon. F. J. Shore
h id equally clearly shown that this tribute had only been
in.ule possible by the fact that “every successive province,
Hi it has fallen into our possession, has been made a field
l<ii higher exaction.” He had stated with all the authority
"I his administrative experience that “the halcyon days of
I in I ta are over, she has been drained of a large proportion
<»l the wealth she once possessed; and her energies have
lircn cramped by a sordid system of misrule to which the
interests of millions have been sacrificed for the benefit
of a few.” 56
Hut neither Shore nor Montgomery Martin had seen the
lull extent to which the rapacity of the conqueror could go,
nor could anyone have guessed how far the new regime
was to surpass even the zeal of a Chartered Company in
Its eagerness for profits. Year by year the peasant had to
1 nr 1 1 an ever growing demand upon his scanty income, till
even a . Conservative Secretary of State for India
Immortalised an ugly metaphor in describing the process,
I The^ injury, said Lord Salisbury, speaking of the im-
poverishment of the peasants by taxation, “is exaggerated
In the case of India, where so much of the revenue is
exported without a direct equivalent. As India must be bled ,
the lancet should be directed to the pacts whece the blood is congested,
t>r at least sufficient , not to those which are already enfeebled from
want of it.” 69
Famine was the only possible result of such a policy.
Famine is not merely a question of shortage, but of the
inability to save or purchase; and it was his inability to
meet the ravages of local or temporary shortages which
APPLYING THE LANCET
1 1 X
was the increasing menace to the Indian villager through-
out the nineteenth century. During the whole period
from 1600, when the Company first came to India, till
the wars of Clive and Dupleix for supremacy, the records
of poverty and famine show that both were strictly limited
in extent. The self-governing village communities provided
against such dangers, nor were the exactions of the Mughals
and their viceroys so great as to deprive the peasant of the
necessary surplus for that provision. 57
But with the extortion of revenue that began with Clive
and Hastings there opens an age of growing poverty,
reflected in the greater ravages of each successive shortage
that afflicted the country. When John Sullivan was ques-
tioned in 1853 as an ex-member of the Madras Council
he was asked whether the Indian people “had traditions
among them which told them that the economic condition
of the country was better in former times under their
native rulers than it was then.”
“I think,” he replied, “generally speaking history tells
us that it was; they have been in a state of the greatest
prosperity from the earliest times, as far as history tells
us.”
Sullivan was then asked how he accounted for this and
for the ability of the Indian peoples in former times “to
lay out the money which they did in canals and irrigation
and tanks.” To this question he replied significantly:
“We have an expensive element which they were free
from, which is the European element, civil and military,
which swallows up so much of the revenue.” 68
The vast increase after 1858 of the evils which had been
deplored by the Hon. F. J. Shore and Montgomery Martin,
by Sullivan and Sir George Wingate, led to a rapid deteriora-
tion of a situation which had already been serious. Famine,
as John Bright reminded the House of Commons, proved a
more terrible scourge to India than war was proving to
Europe, 69 In 1887 H. M. Hyndman wrote in the preface
to his Bankruptcy of India :
1 1 a
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
“I am firmly convinced that in India we are working
up to a hideous economical catastrophe, beside which
the great Irish Famine of 1847 will seem mere child’s
play. What is more, I believe no unprejudiced man can
read through the official evidence summarised in this
volume without coming to the same conclusion.”
“Even as we look on,” said Hyndman, “India is
becoming feebler and feebler. The very life-blood of a great
multitude under our rule is slowly, yet ever faster, ebbing
away." 60 How truly he had interpreted the signs was seen
m the terrible famine of 1897 to 1900, the worst in the whole
history of India, which lasted three years and devastated
the entire country.
It is on record that during the first, and probably the
worst, year of this famine £17,000,000 of land revenue
were collected — that is to say, the normal quota — and that
the drain to England was partly met, as usual, by the
export of food grains to the value of £10,000,000 from a
country where millions were literally dying of hunger. 61
belt without even sufficient grain for their next year’s
harvest, the wretched peasants were unable for three
successive years to recover from this calamity. “Miles of
cultivated land became waste,” writes Dutt, “Jungle grew
on homesteads, wheat land and rice lands. The Land
Kevenue demand of the Government could no longer be
collected.” 92
Necessity therefore compelled a temporary relaxation
in the exactions of the Government, which gave a breathing-
space for recovery. But in the final quarter of the century,
at least fifteen million people are estimated to have died
of famine, most of them during those last three years. 63
A population equivalent to half what was at that time the
population of England had perished of starvation, within
the course of a single generation.
There could be no more fitting conclusion to this chapter
than the words of Bishop Hcber, whose praise for the
administration and general prosperity in one of the Indian
native states has already been cited. Once more wc are
reading the words of a writer of the early part of the
century; but it must be remembered that after 1858
APPLYING TIIE LANCET
I 13
criticism of British administration became more difficult
and more rare, for reasons which we shall consider later.
Bishop 1 Icbcr’s words refer to a system which continued
in all its principal aspects to be the administrative system
of India; and those who have followed the instances we
have selected will recognise the symptoms which alarmed
the Bishop and the results which he feared. 64
Bishop Heber toured the country extensively during three
years from 1824 to 1826. He inquired carefully into social
conditions and was gravely disturbed by the heavy land-
tax which then, as in later years, was the main source of
supply for the growing tribute to England. In a letter
written in 1826 Heber tells how “half the gross produce
of the soil is demanded by the Government,” and comments
that such a rate of taxation (which still obtains throughout
the greater part of British India) “keeps the people, even
in favourable years, in a state of abject penury.” 66 He
finds such excessive taxation, employed for a tribute to a
foreign country, with no return to the cultivator, “an
effective bar to anything like improvement,” and notes
that the tardy remissions made in times of scarcity “do
not prevent men, women and children dying in the streets
in droves, and the roads being strewed with carcasses.” 6 6
Travelling in Northern India, Bishop Heber found;
“a general feeling among the King’s officers . . . that
the peasantry in the Company's Provinces are, on the whole, worse
off, poorer , and more dispirited, than the subjects of the Native
Princes ; and here in Madras, where the soil is, generally
speaking, poor, the difference is said to be still more
marked. The fact is, no Native Prince demands the rent
which we do, and making every allowance for the superior
regularity of our system, etc., I met with very few men who
will not , in confidence, own their belief that the people are over -
taxed, and that the country is in a gradual state of impoverishment.
'I lie Collectors do not like to make this avowal officially.
Indeed, now and then a very able Collector succeeds in
lowering the rate to the people, while by diligence lie
increases it to the State. But, in general, all gloomy
pictures are avoided by them as reflecting on themselves,
and drawing on them censure from the Secretaries at
Madras or Calcutta, while these, in their turn, plead
ri 4 THE WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
the earnestness with which the Directors at home press
for more money.”
Evidence has already been cited, and more will be forth-
coming in subsequent chapters, to show that these conditions
continued to deteriorate throughout the nineteenth century
because the causes of exploitation, so far from being removed,
accumulated with the growth of new capitalist interests.
Hut the contrast which Ilcber made between the provinces
of British India and the condition of the Native States
gradually ceased (o be a real one as tire princes became
increasingly the instruments of British policy. Placed
beyond the fear of insurrection by the powerful guarantees
of the paramount Government of India, these pensioners
of empire became during the years which followed the
Mutiny mere echoes of their master’s voice; and with a
few isolated exceptions their rule has been no less disastrous
than that of the British bureaucracy . 67
NOTES
•n I" Henry-Cotton in New India. The position of the Indian Princes
will be dealt with in a later chapter.
* See Chapter IV.
* R f 0Tt on the Financial Obligations between Great Britain and India
(Bombay, 1931.)
1 Our Financial Relations with India, by Major Wingate (pp. 23-24)
.ondon, 1859. Win S ate had seen long service as an administrator in
the Bombay Presidency.
Details and figures are given in a Parliamentary Report of 1831 .
* Lord Hastings was actually bankrupt at the time of bis Governor-
Generalship, and was accompanied by an official Assignee to receive
ana administer his princely salary,
7 Our Financial Relations with India , pp. 17-19. Quoted i n the
Congress Report, p. 11.
* H 'story of India, p. 68. He also refers to this war as a “dishonourable
episode,
* Letter to Lord Fitzgerald, dated April 6th, 1842. Quoted in (ho
Congress Report, p. 12. The court referred to is, of course, the Court
0 Dnectors of the Company. John Bright, speaking on the same
subject in the House of Commons (Aug, ist, 1859) was equally emphatic.
ast y ear, L ! e sa ^ J * re ^ ei re d to the enormous expense of the Afghan
War, the whole of which ought to have been thrown on the taxation
01 the people of England, because it was a war commanded by the
APPLYING THE LANCET
English cabinet for objects supposed to be English.” (Quoted by
Dutt, Vol II, p. 217.)
10 Our Financial Relations with India, p. 13. Quoted in the Congress
Report, p. 15. “The selfish traditions of our Indian policy prevailed”
is Major Wingate’s summary of the transaction.
11 Our Financial Relations with India, pp. 15—16. Quoted in the
Congress Report p. 15. John Bright is once more found urging the
same point. Speaking in March, 1859, he said: “I think that the forty
million pounds, which the revolt has cost, is a grievous burden to place
upon the people of India. It has come from the mismanagement of
Parliament and the people of England. If every man had what was
just, no doubt those forty million pounds would have had to be paid
out of tbe taxes levied on the people of this country.” (Quoted by
Dutt, Vol II, p. 219 )
14 Letter of Aug. 8th, 1872, published in the report of the Indian
Expenditure Commission' of 1895 (Vol II, p. 292). Quoted in the
Congress Report, p. 16.
13 See Chap. IV. The total figures involved were
Dividend 1833-58: £15,120,000
Dividend 1858-74: £10,080,000
Capital Stock Redemption: £12,000,000
Total: £37,200,000
14 Dutt, Vol I, p. 399.
15 Law of Civilisation and Decay, by Brook Adams.
Ie Some figures in this connection have already been cited. A
further example is that of Lord Cornwallis, who received when Governor-
General the sum of £47,000 as prize money after the war with Mysore
in addition to the pension referred to above.
17 Figure quoted by Macaulay in his Essay on Clive, from The Life
of Robert Lord Clive , by Major-General Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B,
18 Macaulay: Essay on Clive. Macaulay himself repaired his fortunes
in India. He drew £15,000 a year by holding two jobs, and wrote to
his sister that he proposed to “live in splendour” on £5,000 a year
“and return to England at only thirty-nine years of age, in full vigour
of life, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds.” He regarded India
mainly as a place where he could fill his pockets. See Note to Chap. V.
18 A “writer” would be merely a clerk, so that the £30,000 estimate
assumes no capital expenditure.
40 Sir George Wingate estimated the “drain” from India at
£100,000,000 from 1800-1858, without calculating interest. -
al The term “extortion” is here used to cover all sums which were
taken from India (as dividends, salaries, etc.), without the consent of
the Indian people and in excess of any services rendered.
ai The argument is also not infrequently heard that (inasmuch as the
British claim to be “ trustees” in their government of India) it is immoral
if not illegal for a “trustee” to have administered the estate of his
“ward” in such a way as to have placed the “ward” heavily in debt
to himself.
41 i.e. by subtracting the debt of £69,000,000 from the sum of
£112,200,000 wrongly debited to India during these years.
1
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
k. actual sums involved in the early period are not, of course,
as t ompaie with the debts of many European countries in recent
, Hut they must be considered in relation to the extreme poverty
H*l. a and the value of money at the time. Nor does their size affect
ttslu e or injustice of their allocation. The Indian insistence on this
mvLn iay x be p C °r I f ied T h the inabilit y of belaud to forget
r ' „° Eng t ® hme " thc . car «paigns of Cromwell in Ireland
* t gotten episode. To Irishmen they are a permanent injury
I winch die country is still suffering and for which it is still paying!
" Congress Report, Vol II, p. 33 (footnote).
1 ‘ The Expansion of Britain , by W. R. Kermack.
' lhl * 'Iff* th , e be S I! ™ing of a process which was to lead ultimately
wc shall see) to the development of Indian industries by British
" 1 ’ thU ? “ m P*u tinS the ° rcle that be S an with their destruction,
the early British investments in India (being confined to plama-
ttm, railways, irrigation works, etc.) did not interfere in any way with
On >he contrary, they were an essential QAT
.lit It points out (Vol, II, p. , 74 ) “the administration both of the
" ..ha Company and the Crown was subject to a continuous
a! hamuitary pressure to extend and multiply railways in India even
l a loss to the revenues of the country.” X
Indian figures are generally given in of rupees. A cror* is
rn million, and for calculation at the present rate of exchange the
llipcc s lould be valued at is. 6d. to reduce rupee figures to sterling,
dpital expenditure by (he State on Indian railways totalled lls. 745.2^)
by lhe year >93*; In addition there were Rs. 33 . 2 o croresiitll
Jj’ 111 of capital supplied by the Guaranteed Companies, to which
•• ve nd Imes were leased for working after their acquisition by the
\\ * , Any e . xact calculation of these sums in sterling is difficult, as
ic va uc of the rupee lias varied between is, 4d. and 2$.
"The guaranteed minimum interest in the case of the original
jDmpames was from 4 * per cent to 5 per cent. This was at a lime when
'\Xt in CI L W B r" {h A grCatei ' Part ° f the East India Company’s
L th - r' m Bgl . Pr “ ,denc y>. according to a statement submitted
y the Company in 1856 and printed by order of the House of
*® I here was, of course, a first charge upon the profits to discharge
he guaranteed interest paid by the Government Surplus profit
1 ...ugh originally enjoyed exclusively by shareholders, were later on
' '^ RCd equally between the Companies and the Government.
31 * Ius °P t,on was g lve » tbe Government after twenty-live years or
■■her fifty years, the value of stock to be calculated according to h
“r pu«hL"? C * ng 1 “ lree **“* “"mediately previous to the date
1 1 H. Ball, Railway Policy in India.
CommiUcc of ,a3 *- Q. uotcJ b v
.lurte^bXTvoUr^'^ 2 ' Eviden “ of William Thornton,
Report of 1872. Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 355 .
11 Report of 1872. Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 356.
APPLYING THE LANCET
117
ST Report of 1873. Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 356. In an earlier
statement (quoted in a despatch by Lord Mayo, dated March nth,
1869), Lord Lawrence said that “the history of the actual operations
of Railway Companies in India gives illustrations of management as
bad and extravagant as anything that the strongest opponent of
Government agency could suggest as likely to resuit from that system.”
39 Congress Report Vol I, p. 52. (See also Report of Select Com-
mittee of 1884, pp. 771-781.)
89 Annual Report on Railways in India, 1872-73-
According to Hyndman (Bankruptcy of India, p. 65) Sir Juland Danvers
said that £28,000,000 had been paid out for guaranteed interest by
the end of 1876.
i(> Parliamentary Report of 1873. Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, pp. 356-7.
41 Parliamentary Report of 1873. The actual discussion at the
moment was with regard to tariff policy, but the principles elucidated
would apply equally well to the matter of railways. 1 n the ’Sixties the
Second Industrial Revolution (i.e. of the Heavy Industries) led to the
creation of new capitalist interests destined to become in time more
powerful than those of Lancashire textile manufacturers. Big railway
contracts offered the finest markets for these heavy industries.
48 Parliamentary Report of 1873.
43 Congress Report, Vol II, pp. 93-95. The “market value” at
which the Government eventually purchased the railways was deter-
mined not by their real worth but by the fact that the capital expended
— however extravagantly — could not fail to pay its guaranteed dividend.
Hence extravagance in construction meant an artificially inflated
purchasing price. The loss on deficits is actually given as Rs. 51 crores
in 1931. In calculating this roughly at £40,000,000 the author has
used an average ratio of exchange but not allowed for increased
deficits since 1931.
44 The Indian Expenditure Commission of 1895, commonly known
as the Welby Commission.
45 The Bombay Development Scheme was a post-war folly during
the administration of the present Lord Lloyd in the Bombay Presidency.
“ Development schemes ” have long been a source of profit to British
Contractors but of doubtful value to the Indian public.
49 Report of the Indian Expenditure Commission, Vol II, p. 37°-
47 See The Science of Public Finance by Professor Findlay Shirras,
Director of Statistics to the Government of India from 1914-1921.
The Church of India (which receives the benefit of this pension)
is simply an off-shoot of the Church of England; that is to say it is a
State-Church, adhering to the Anglican communion. Outside the
British community its membership in India is negligible; and the
£200,000 a year is mainly used for such purposes as the maintenance
of the Bishop’s palace at Calcutta — a marked contrast to the hovels
of tl ie Hindu peasants who arc forced to contribute to its upkeep. Thc
European population in British India is oflicially estimated at 116,916
out of a total population of over 250,000,000. Even the Indian Christian
Community (mainly “Syrian”) is only a little over 3,000,000, according
to the last census.
43 Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 183.
the white sahibs in India
" Continuation of Mill’s History, Vol VII p. o 4
J* I Hilt, Vol II, pp. xiii and xiv (preface).
' ' Mumal Relations with India , by Sir Geonre Win™n- ti r i,
«•» ‘Hon is given on pp. 96-7 J ge Wingate. I he full
55 - Interest e
p ,M "lg I" this the salaries of British civil and militj ^ y ( r^ 3 ?> 000 ; 000 '
I I on private capital investee he * ' P 0l l‘ Clak , and the
•-Wy »«rer £50^0,000 a, , he Resent titne "'" ImUa “
‘ htstern India , by Montgomeiy Martin, London, 18^8.
I ' Notes on Indian Affairs. London i8q"? iL T t 1 ,
1 lie said, “how greatly we have rZkM \h* always been our
Y Hit li the native rulers were able to extort ” that
►"“tCtof" "*»• '*» H «... va
••Third Report of the Select Committee iBro ™ ,
'“<> been British Resident at Mysore’and “CtoLtor’wfe^f
«') at Coimbatur. Twenty years earlier i ir i , I of
1.. 1 Committee of .83a that the Live. o nd.l sutoed^iL^nhV
..titled under theh own princes ^’fn , “ rml,,ar >'> which they
had said “I should iay tharnothinn ? SWer “ a furtllC1 ' c l ucslio "
'>***•" (Select Contnudteeof SnLT*'
1 ! ■ pp. 85 and 66.) J Minutes oi Lvidence
1 .'.nSope .'tw Bi,, a ( f n ,r:, r ^ t* - *•
i 3 z B,ieh> ’ by wmiaro Robe «“ n '
“Kre Dutt, Vol II, p. 534 .
• • iHitt, Vol II, p. 535. The Government’s own losses as n result of
hi mine, owing to general impoverishment led ft
'"7 °f famine iell ei m imitation of earlier rulers of India!" 5 * ML J
•* hhlta and its Problems * by W S I UU V T-r,* n
. ..nine throughout the nineteenth century! a^7liv “Slf °”‘ h
I'tuximate figures from the official estimator g 1 foUowin 8
Tears
1800-25
1825-50
1850-75
1875-190°
Famine Deaths
1 , 000,000
400,000
5,000,000
15,000,000
h I n ny estimates are much larger than these.
APPLYING THE LANCET
1 ] 9
e< Memoirs and Correspondence , London, 1830. Vol II, p. 413. Letter
to ihe Rt. Hon. Charles Wyndham Wynn, dated Karnatic, March, 1826.
Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 369-370. Dutt points out that the Bishop
avoided expressing himself on this subject in his journal, which was
written lor publication: even greater discretion was to become even
more common in later years. Dutt says that there was a reduction in
the land tax in Bombay and Madras after Heber’s time, but that it
was “still excessive." All the evidence indicates that poverty con-
tinued, however, to Increase.
63 According to H. H. Wilson (Mill, Vol VII, pp. 299-300) the
Hindu law enacted that the King should have a twelfth, an eighth
or a sixth of the produce, but in time of war he might take one-fourth.
Assessments varied according to quality of land, and were taken in
kind, which made the peasant less concerned with price variations.
Moslem rulers demanded more, but Akbar limited the land-tax to
one-third of the produce.
86 Mr. W. S. Lilley in India and its Problems gives a similar and equally
gruesome description of famine in the latter half of the century.
67 Of the rule of the Indian princes before the time of the British
conquests Macaulay wrote significantly in his Essay on Clive : “ Utider
their old masters they (i.e., the people of India) had at least one
resource; when the evil became insupportable, the people rose and
pulled down the government. But the English government was not to
be so shaken off. That government, oppressive as the most oppressive
form of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the strength of civilisa-
tion. It resembled the government of evil Genii, rather than the
government of human tyrants.” After 1858 the same became true of
the rule of Indian princes; for as good servants of the Empire they
enjoyed the protection of the British — “the hereditary nobility of
mankind," as Macaulay calls them.
CHAPTER VII
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS
mi; i no back upon the achievements of the nineteenth
iilury, an English aristocrat who had studied social
mi I ii ions both in Egypt and India wrote as follows
I! “"ting the conditions of the Indian peasantry:
"India’s famines have been severer and more frequent
l in agricultural poverty has deepened, its rural popu-
ln I ion has become more hopelessly in debt, their despair
•••ore desperate. . . . Though myself a good Conser-
vative. ... I own to being shocked at the bondag’e
hi which the Indian people are held . . . And I have
■ nine to the conclusion that if we go on developing the
I’ountry at the present rate, the inhabitants, sooner or
(■iter, will have to resort to cannibalism, for there will
hr nothing left for them to eat.” 1
Hie years following the revolt of 1857 were, as we have
*" n, marked by a rapid increase in the public debt, invol-
IM K increased burdens upon a poverty-stricken population,
Mir first thirteen years of Crown administration have been
linrfly summarised by Mr. L. H. Jenks in his Migration
11/ iiritish Capital : 2
“I he burdens that it was found convenient to charge
in India seem preposterous. The costs of the Mutiny,
1 he price of the transfer of the Company’s rights to the
( Irown . . . wars in China and Abyssinia, every Govern-
mental item in London that remotely related to India,
down to the fees of the charwoman in the India Office
and the expenses of ships that sailed but did not partici-
pate m the hostilities, and the cost of Indian regiments
lor six months’ training at home before they sailed all
were charged to the account of the unrepresented ryot.
1 lie Sultan ol Turkey visited London in 1868 in state,
130
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS
1 2 I
and his official ball was arranged for at the India Office
and the bill charged to India. A lunatic asylum in Ealing,
gifts to members of a Zanzibar mission,, the consular
and diplomatic establishments of Great Britain in China
and in Persia, part of the permanent expenses of the
Mediterranean 1 * lect and the entire cost ot a line of
telegraph from England to India had been charged
before 1870 to the Indian Treasury. It is small wonder
that the Indian revenues swelled from 33 millions a year
to 52 millions a year during the first thirteen years of
Crown administration, and that deficits accumulated
from 1866 to 1870 amounting to ui millions. A Home
Debt of £30,000,000 was brought into existence between
1857 and i860, and steadily added to, while British
statesmen achieved reputations for economy and finan-
cial skill through judicious manipulation of the Indian
accounts.”
We have already considered the principal item of what
is generally termed the "productive debt. No account
of these financial obligations would be complete, however,
without some mention of the war debt after 18571 referred
to by Mr. Jenks ; and a few instances . may be selected
for examination. # , >
It is important first to realise that the division of India s
outstanding debt into "productive” and "unproductive”
items is extremely misleading. The public debt is not
connected with any particular items apart from railway
annuities, and it is purely by a conventional distribution
t liat items in the debt as it stands should be connected with
specific purposes. Thus, for example, the loss on the rail-
ways has been largely met from current revenues and from
Famine Insurance grants; but this depletion of national
resources must have meant that more money had- to be
borrowed for other purposes than would otherwise have
been necessary.
It has also been the practice in Indian Government
finance to reduce war debts and other unproductive obliga-
tions where this could be done, so as to be able to show
productive assets as far as possible against all national
commitments. But it is clear that every million pounds
paid off in reduction of a war debt could have been used
the WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
t '
l" pay off part of a productive debt if the war debt had
lint existed. It is important, therefore, not to be misled
hy figures winch appear to show that the present debt
| mmnl y productive,” when that debt itself would be
imii li smaller but for the repayment of “unproductive”
l"am lor such purposes as war. The conquest of India
W,is carried out piecemeal entirely at the cost of the Indian
!" T Il y« r . a "<l mainly by war loans (raised by the Company
before 1858 and later by the Government). These loans
wnc all made chargeable upon the Indian revenues, so
I hat India was acquired without costing Great Britain a
0 half-penny ; and it is the total cost of their own con-
't'Wst by the British in addition to such military costs as
me surveyed below that must be taken into account in
• "USidering the reasons which make India to-day a debtor
country.
In the year 1867 Great Britain became involved in a
wnr with Abyssinia. 3 An army was sent from India under
V the command of Robert Napier, who entered the Ethiopian
'.ipita] with- an ease which Mussolini must often have
envied. The cost of the expedition, however, was largely
home by the Indian exchequer, which paid £600,000 for
.» war in which India was not even remotely interested,
recollect very well,” wrote Lord Lawrence, “that, in
1 ; 59 and l86o > Ind *a was even charged for the cost
<>f unreasonably large numbers of men who were
accumulated in the depots in England, nominally for
l he Indian service. .In the present case India has
no interest whatever in the Abyssinia expedition, and it
appears therefore to me that she should pay none of the
cost. 4
Lord Salisbury, discussing the same question, deplored
the idea that India should be “looked upon as an English
barrack in the Oriental Seas from which we may draw
any number of troops without paying for them.” 5 The same
view was taken by Sir Charles Trevelyan in his evidence
before the Fawcett Committee. “India,” he said, “had
nothing to do with the proceedings which brought about
le Abyssinia War and was not much concerned with the
result.
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 123
“In fact, India was in no way more concerned with
our expedition to Abyssinia than were Australia and
Canada. . . . The only reason why we did not make
a similar demand from Australia and Canada to help
pay the expenses of that war was that we knew perfectly
well that they would indignantly scout such a proposal;
they would not listen to it for a moment, would they?
Well, I am bound as an honest man to say that I see
no real difference.” 6
A similar case was that of the Perak expedition of 1875.
Of the cost Lord Northbrook said: “It was a very small
one; but in this Perak case I cannot conceive anyone
doubting that India has been hardly treated. ... I
happened to be the Governor-General at the time, and
I protested against this charge being put upon India.” 7
But a much more serious instance was the Second Afghan
War of 1878, which cost £22,000,000. Great Britain
contributed five million pounds to this cost, leaving India
seventeen millions to pay.
This war, “almost as chequered as the earlier one, and
as unnecessary and with as little honour in its memory,” 8
was the direct result of British foreign policy, which had
pressed upon the Indian Government its own aggressive
designs against Afghanistan. The earlier war with this
country has already been mentioned in the previous
chapter. Dost Mohammed, who had then been ruling, in
Kabul, is described by Justin McCarthy as “a sincere
lover of his country, and on the whole a wise and just
ruler.” 0 His crime had been that he had entered into
friendly relations with Russia after being cold-shouldered,
by the British authorities in India; and for this cause the
British had declared war. The conflict had .lasted four
years, brought neither profit nor credit to any of the parties
concerned, and ended with the restoration of the status
quo ante bellum.
The occasion of the Second Afghan War was very similar.
Lord Lytton had succeeded the Earl of Northbrook 10 as
Viceroy, 11 and he went to India, as he himself admitted,
“specially instructed to treat the Indian Frontier question
as an indivisible part of the great Imperial question.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
• li.iinly depending for its solution upon the general policy
( Her Majesty’s government.” 12 Shortly after Lytton’s
nival the Government “determined to send a mission to
lin e Ali . .. . the ruler of Kabul, in order to guard against
it >ii>in intiiguc by establishing a distinct and paramount
fluence in Afghanistan. . . It (the mission) was so
tmierous as to look rather like an army than an embassy.” 13
l«r mission was stopped on the frontier, and this fact was
ule a casus belli by the British authorities.
The contrast in treatment between self-governing and
"ii -self-governing peoples was once more brought forward
m connection with this war. Mr. Fawcett told the House
nf Commons that a war had been fought in the self-
Ijnverning colony at the Gape for which Britain, in his
\ ii w, was not responsible. This war would cost the English
i " M P lc some five million pounds. In India, on the other
limd, a war for which the Indian people were not
H upmisible a war which grew out of our own policy
Wild actions in Europe — was to be paid for by the people of
India because they were not self-governed and were not
I » presented . 14 Even Gladstone went a long way in support
III this view. 15
f urther minor expeditions followed, such as the military
■<!>< rations in Egypt which took place in 1882. For some
mu xplained reason, over two-thirds of the total costs in
lld'i instance were borne by India. 18 Between this date
mid 1 Hy 1 a succession of expeditions on the Indian frontier
wnr undertaken at a total cost of nearly £13,000,000;
1 I'gure which (as the evidence given before the YVelbv
1 bm mission shows) did not include the normal pav of
Hill Htlinding army. 1 X
The third Burmese War, of 1885, which resulted in the
itmrxalion of another vast province, is worthy of rather
m,,,r detailed consideration. King Thebaw of Burma had
1 scandalising the British public for some years pre-
yliHinly, for handbills were distributed explaining that he
* ' 1 d 1 uukard . 17 British merchants in Rangoon had urged
1 llr annexation of Upper Burma as the only action suffi-
• "itly strong to deal with the case; and the Rangoon
1 h.tnibrr of Commerce addressed a circular to British
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 1 25
Chambers of Commerce urging pressure on the Govern-
nn ent 1 s
Kin<* Thebaw, who appears to have continued to drink
while “these ominous negotiations were in progress, m his
sober moments concluded treaties with France, Germany
and Italy. He even agreed to the establishment of a Frenc
bank and the construction of a French railway, to Frenc 1
steamers and French oil concessions— a procedure which
shocked the conscience of Lord Salisbury more profoundly
than even the wildest inebriation of the Burmese monarch.
Consequently the British Prime Minister interviewed the
French ambassador, whereupon the French Government
withdrew and recalled their envoy from Thebaw s capital
at Ava. 1 ® But from that moment it was clear that only
annexation could safeguard Burma in future from un-
British banks and railways.
As so often happens in English history, the proper
occasion for war with every moral and Judicial sanction
arose at the necessary moment. The High Court of Ava
gave judgment against a British firm on a charge of
defrauding the King’s revenue of £ 73 > 000 - 2 ® The
of India immediately intervened; but Thebaw, probably
under the influence of liquor, questioned the right of the
Indian Government to interfere in the decisions of his
courts. The reply was an ultimatum, demanding the
suspension of all proceedings against the British Company
until the arrival of a permanent British “Resident, whose
presence at the Burmese Court would place the Govern-
ment at Ava on the same subservient basis as that enjoyed
by the Indian princes. The Indian Viceroy demanded m
addition that the foreign relations of the Burmese Govern-
ment should in future be conducted in accordance with
“advice” issued by the Government of India, and that
special facilities should be granted by King Thebaw lor
the British trade with China.
To this ultimatum King Thebaw had the effrontery to
reply that a case conducted within his jurisdiction against
a firm operating on Burmese territory was not the business
of the British Government or the Viceroy of India, rle
said that he would be happy to receive a British agent, as
*
I.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
hail done in the past (till the withdrawal of the British
mion from Ava in 1879). 21 For the rest, he claimed that
relations with other foreign powers were his own con-
ii, and that the British could have just such trade facilities
I he law of the land allowed them. It need hardly be
(led that this reply was considered a very proper and
(equate reason for declaring war on King Thebaw
Itirh was done in November, 1885. “The Kingdom
Burma, as Mi. Dodwell puts it, “offered a notable
ft it nee of the difficulty of maintaining friendly relations
the European sense of the word) with an Asiatic.
iHtC .” 22
The war that followed was brief. There was little armed
(In lance to the British forces, but heavy casualties resulted
11111 lever. To punish King Thebaw of Ava for discrimin-
wig against the British in trade concessions (there was
bn a Gladstonian motive of putting down cruelty and
u barous practices) a British and Indian army under
hncral Prendergast steamed up the Irrawady River.” 23
1 licbaw was made prisoner three weeks after his reply
1-1 the ultimatum had been received. He had killed off
most of his possible rivals; and since, as Mr. Dodwell
(iniiits out, “the only survivor thought to possess the
In. cssary character was under French influence” it was
Humous that “annexation was the only possible course.”
It proved, however, a more difficult process than dethroning
I mg Thebaw, for the country took five years to subdue
ami the campaign required an army of over 30,000 men.
"Unskilful endeavours to treat it as an Indian province”
I* ■ I lowed a succession of generally admitted blunders in
(| if* early administration of this newly acquired territory. 24
A 1 lording to figures supplied to the Welby Commission,
I lie whole cost of the subjugation of Burma, amounting to
H'Mirly £5,000,000 was charged to India.
About the same time Indian troops were sent into the
'l .udan, and ten years later (1896) the Indian Exchequer
iv.is involved in further expenses in that country which
H-rre the occasion of the following vigorous protest from the
1 mvernment of India:
*
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 127
“In order to strengthen Soukin and to set free Egyptian
troops for employment on the Nile, we have been asked
to provide for a garrison composed of troops from the
native army in India. We cannot perceive any Indian
interests, however remote, which are involved in carrying
on the policy above described. It cannot be alleged that
the safety of the Suez Canal is involved. . . .
“We feel it our duty, in the interests of the country of
which the administration is entrusted to us, to protest
once more in the strongest terms against the policy
which burdens the Indian revenues with the expenditure
connected with services in which India has no interest. 26
The protest concludes by denouncing such a policy as
“inexpedient, because it exposes our government to attacks
to which there is no adequate answer.” 26
Our last example of these curious uses of the Indian
revenue is that of the Groat War. From the outset of the
War Indian troops were freely used, both in Europe and
in the Arabian campaigns; but this was not considered
sufficient. On September 8th, 1914, the Imperial Legislative
Council (a body having no representative capacity whatso-
ever) therefore tabled a resolution, which it very naturally
passed without any difficulty, expressing the usual devotion
and loyalty to the King-Emperor. 27 This resolution then
went on to the following astonishing assertion:
“They desire at the same time to express the opinion
that the people of India, in addition to the military
assistance now being afforded by India to the empire,
would wish to share in the heavy financial burden now
imposed by the war on the United Kingdom and request
the Government of India to take this view into con-
sideration and thus to demonstrate the unity of India
with the Empire.” 28
Lord Hardingc, the Viceroy, at first interpreted this
offer (made so magnanimously on behalf of millions of
unrepresented peasants) to mean that the ordinary costs
of the Indian troops employed beyond the frontier would
be borne by India. Anticipating an early end to the war,
he suggested that one million sterling would not be an
1 ' 2ti the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
unreasonable amount and added: “A contribution on more
liberal lines than this would not, we think, be fair to the
Indian tax-payer.” 26
In addition, however, to paying the ordinary charges oi'
l lie Indian troops and their transport costs, a further gift
ol £i 00,000,000 was arranged between the Indian Govern-
ment and the Secretary of State for India. 30 Accordingly
(in Maich,^ 1917) Sir William Meyer, the Finance Member
ol the Indian Legislative Council, introduced the Budget
to his mock Parliament in a significant speech which included
the following observations:
. <<We have alwa ys felt, however, that if and when our
circumstances warranted, we should take up the question
of making a further direct contribution by India towards
the struggle m which her own political and economic
future is closely involved; and throughout which her
trade and security have been so materially assisted by
the command of the sea established by His Majesty’s
Navy, and we have been in constant touch with Ilis
Majesty's Government in regard to this matter. We hold
that the time has now come, at which we can safely put
our wish into effect and thereby gratify still further the
patriotic feeling unanimously expressed in this Council
on the occasion of the resolution moved by Sir Gamrad-
harrao Chitnavis, . . . ” 31 ®
The hundred million pounds of which Sir William
Meyer now proceeded to dispose amounted, in his own
words, to nearly double the Imperial revenues of India as
they stood before the War. This, however, was still con-
sidered insufficient; and further assistance was offered to
the British Exchequer by the Indian Government in
September, 1918. On this occasion an indirect contribution
was made of which the net value was about £26,000,000. 32
A sum of about a hundred and twenty-six million sterling
was thus paid by India towards Britain’s war expenses
in addition to costs already defrayed by India in connection
with her vastly enlarged military expenditure. 33
The total cost of the Great War to India was in the
neighbourhood of £240,000,000—110 trifling sum (as Indian
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 1 29
post-war deficits clearly show) for the poorest country in the
world to contribute to the war-chest of the wealthiest
country, when the latter was fighting in defence of its vast
assets. 34 There has since been much talk of repudiation
with regard to war debts; and even the British Govern-
ment, with its enormous credit at stake, has felt compelled
to avail itself of a moratorium with regard to its American
obligations, on which it has virtually defaulted. Thus,
while the democratic countries (whose responsibility must
dearly be greatest for debts contracted by their govern-
ments) hold themselves free to repudiate those obligations
in case of necessity, those who had no choice with regard to
heavy debts incurred on their behalf are compelled by a
curious code of honour to pay with their last pound of
flesh.
Before concluding the war record of the British Empire
with regard to India there is another, and equally important
aspect of the question which every student of imperialism
in action should thoroughly investigate.
In 1928 Sir Austen Chamberlain, then Foreign Secretary
to the British Government, wrote a note to the Government
of the United States that defined in no uncertain terms the
attitude of the British Empire to international problems.
This note contained the reservations stipulated by Great
Britain in signing the Kellog Pact. Much was made of that
pact at the time by peace-loving people in all parts of the
world. What the pact actually meant to the British Govern-
ment may be surmised from the following sentences
contained in the Chamberlain note:
“There are certain regions of the world the welfare
and integrity of which constitute a special and vital
interest for our peace and safety. . . . Their protection
against attack is to the British a measure of self-defence.
It must be clearly understood that His Majesty’s Govern-
ment in Great Britain accept the treaty upon the distinct
understanding that it does not prejudice their freedom of action
in this respect
From this note it will be observed that Great Britain,
at the very moment when, she agreed to a treaty “outlawing
1 30
the white sahibs ,n INDIA
war,” stipulated that she should have comnlei, r ,
of action to protect certain v ■ 7 com P Iete freedom
attack. Or to nnf tK ‘ t-gions (unspecified) against
prepared for peace on LT'" 77 P ' ainly nri,ai ’> was
fight if any part of l ^ ° f thC Staba but would
To the sin eni r ,• mpi,e WCre ‘l'reatened.»
llritish Government vviJl* seem mrftc P,1CU Statement by tbc
• buiU 7 -aintai’ed by q m
Who wish to re existinaF *° f « ht f ° r iL Tt —
territory against external aggression^ ? S 1 COnc l uered
of politics for this imn, ® ‘ ^ uL t0 the student
appear a meaningl^^^r^^^^ murt
to disarm until lie has restored hi i auc U can a P°rd
agreement not to ^ an
■hreatened is entirely superfluous. P ‘'° Perty 15 '
• he Bllt,sh Ministers must have been simruhrlv In i ■
m a sense of humour if the Kellno S 7 lackm S
seriously by them and rh - S 1 ac was cver taken
unpatriotic as to surest tha P *" CSCnt author wou hi not be so
with any knowIcdexTof h' V U ** 1 U ln f C ass is cJu1 *- Anyone
all wars for dm n fst 1 ^ ' S perfcc,ly wdI *«« that
on what may be called the^T'j 1 hT- ‘'7 becn fou 8 Ilt
Certainly in the nw ,i Chamberlain Reservation.””
these “certai^ rerionVof m WerC m Ught in ortler to
proposed to proSrtLl t ^ b »
Having swallowed as m ] c > mcasU1 ^ of self-defence.” •
the British Government ihimr' ^ W °‘ M “ U c0,lld di 8 c st,
of seizing more T lhLrcl " r <-- renounced any intention
#«'*& izzszsg* <■; *- «»
grew as the power of the Great M,„,i ,Undla Company
end. It wac cnr’ii t * ‘ t^Iughals was nearing its
when the destinies ^of"* “! s lbc w °rld has often witnessed,
chaos that followed the pTittot l T ^
a -w and healthier civilization arose. In a !T r ^
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS * 3 *
power of Spain was broken for the betterment of mankind.
But in India the normal course of political evolution was
frustrated at the most critical period in her history, and
the transient despotism ol the Mughal emperors was
replaced by a system that rooted itsell deeply and rapidly
by every available means. The dependence of India
became not simply political but commercial: her sub-
servience not only outward, but inward and psychological.
It is impossible to say with certainty what would have
happened if the country had been left to itself. The history
of mankind is so full of unforeseen events that none can tell
whether India's development would have been swifter or
slower than that of the West. Few would have dared to
prophesy at one time that the Kingdom of the Pharaohs
would become a dependency of an unknown island beyond
the Pillars of Hercules. In more recent times Japan stood
forth suddenly as the rival and equal of the Western Powers.
And so the alternative destiny that lay before India must
always be a matter of purest speculation. All that \vc know
is the price that India and the world have paid foi what
actually happened, and the reckoning that yet awaits us,
if cause and effect still hold good in the political woild.
The early history of the British in India is bound up
with the question of Anglo-French relations. Indeed, it
would be even more accurate to say that Anglo-French
relations at that time were bound up with British and
French ambitions in India. It is in any case certain that
Anglo-French rivalry had no solid basis in Continental
affairs. England and France opposed each other in the War
of the Austrian Succession (1741- * 74 ®) s P onsols
Austria and Prussia respectively. A lew yeais latci they
stood face to face once more; but in respect of the dispute
that was still the main issue on the Continent (i.e., the
possession of Silesia) the two Powers had changed sides.
It was, in fact, apparent, both from this evidence and
the known policy of the elder Pitt, who was all-poweiful
from 1757-1761, that the real quarrel between France and
England lay in India and Canada. Pitt subsidized Frederick
of Prussia to keep the French armies occupied in Europe
while he worked out his designs in the remoter pai ts ol the
'J 2 the WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
E*“ SK fiKS.KS -
we ^le%tn ^fe° U cr d ^ 3
exploited by the rival pTers ofT/ropd'™ 1 WC '' e
in India 116 end ° f , the ei ? hteenth cent «T ll>e British power
", " ‘ remamed ^disputed by European rivals but
Without doubt it was the British power in the East th^
ired Napoleon with the ambition to found a great Eastern
empire, and sent him on his ill-fated expedition to Egypt ”
1 he conquest of Egypt was to have been the first sten in a
!br a 1 * at ° na P art „ e llad laid before the French Directory
l.t«S;^ tra India * Where Ti P“ Multan had
thh 0 scl,eme rS the fl P ‘ h6 ° f the Nilc had destroyed
£ he world; and when hostilities broke out
Island of £?' i 1 j ^ aUSC was extr emely significant. The
lohn h R ^ ^ CaptUred fr0m the Knights of St
Ate* -
not l„ ' r ' n S l,s , h - The British Government were
he olr i! r Va . UC ° f thiS stron S hold ^ protecting
•Ilreariv he „ ’ ° retention of the island had
to its forme ° CCaS ' 0n ° f War with Russia - Its restoration
An e n f ™ : one of the terms of the Peace of
direct tame of 7 $ “"7° ^ ^ ^ ™ d ><=
M y ’ l8 ° 3 ' An imperialist historian says of this incident:
“ Its retention marts the entry of India and her affairs
the wtvTT POllt,C !’ for MaIta was a stronghold on
the way to Egypt and the Red Sea route to India.””
a,te/ ha l “V 5 statem . e nt is not strictly accurate,
Eurone W t 7 CC ° me “ 1VO,Ved in the politics of
effects^ ir , ‘ •: interesting to notice the far-reaching
at this time N Ua i p ° 1Cy “ dlsturb 'ns the world’s peace
time. Napoleon was the last Frenchman to threaten
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 1 33
British control of India, and with his failure Anglo-French
rivalry comes to an end, except for sporadic instances of
conflicting colonial interests in other parts of the world.
From this time onwards British diplomacy became obsessed
with what was known as “the Russian Bogey,” and British
foreign policy up to (and even after) the formation of the
Triple Entente, was dictated largely by the fear of Russian
aggression in the East, with particular reference to India.
The British Government now began to use every possible
means to preserve the Ottoman Empire. On the Retl Sea
route a subservient Turkey was considered preferable to a
belligerent Russia; and for the next hundred years the
British Government became absorbed in wars and intrigues
in the Near East.
This was the cause of British interference in the quarrel
between Mchemct Ali and the Sultan. “Palmerston,”
according to the epilogue to Green’s Ihstory, “had a single
purpose — so to restore the old boundaries of the Turkish
Empire that it should remain in occupation of the roads to
India.” 40 The action of England at that time in driving
Mchemet Ali out of Asia nearly led to war with France.
Rejecting a French proposal for the freedom or neutrality
of the Suez and Euphrates routes, Britain protected the road
to India her own way. The Treaty of London (1841)
secured the Empire of Britain by guaranteeing that of the
Sultan, and the Syrian Christians (for whose case France
had pleaded — not without political motives) were restored
to the Pax Ottomana.
The Crimean War, with its terrible cost in human
suffering, is the next landmark in Imperial history. Here
again Britain was concerned with maintaining the integrity
of the Turkish Empire as a corollary of her Indian policy.
Eleven years later Europe hovered on the verge of another
war, when the bombastic declarations of Disraeli threw
Great Britain into a diplomatic conflict with Russia over the
same issue. The atrocities committed by the Turkish
Government in 1876 were probably unequalled in the whole
record of the Ottoman Empire, and were made the subject
of a vigorous political campaign by Mr. Gladstone. How-
ever, in the words of Justin McCarthy:
*34 the white sahibs in India
The cry went forth . . . that the moment the Turks
went out of Constantinople, the Russians must come in.
■Nothing could have been better suited to rouse up re-
action and alarm. . . . Lord Beaconsfield was for main-
taining Turkey at all risks as a barrier against Russia.
Mr Gladstone was for removing all responsibility for
lurkey and taking the consequences.” 11
The risks were doubtless felt by the world at large, and
more particularly by the Sultan’s subjects in Bulgaria.
This time, however, what Disraeli called “peace with
honour” was maintained. “Peace with honour” was the
work of the Congress of Berlin, where the British Prime
Minister made, with the other delegates, a solemn statement
t lat he was not bound by any secret engagements affecting
the matters under discussion. In point of fact lie was bound
by two such engagements, of which one was a promise to
maintain Turkey in all her Asiatic possessions against all
invasion in return for Turkish acquiescence in the occupation
of Cyprus by Great Britain. 42 By such honourable means
was the road to India secured once more.
, The protection of this route had acquired additional
importance by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
Continual British interference in Egyptian politics, which
(ollowed this event,- may be traced largely to the military
necessities arising from the Indian Empire. For this
reason Disraeli had bought the Khedive’s shares in the
Canal Company; and England, therefore, continued her
policy of intervention after France had abandoned the
dual control of Egypt, On the bombardment of Alexandria
in 1882 Mr. Prothero writes: “France was unwilling to
interfere . . . but England could not leave the Suez
Canal to be dealt with as Arabi chose.” 13 Fresh cam-
paigns followed as a result in Egypt and the Sudan.
The year following the Congress of Berlin was marked
y the Second Afghan War, to which reference has already
been made, showing its intimate connection with Anglo-
Russian relations. The more recent history of British
relations with Russia up to the Great War included the
frontier “incident” at Pcnjdch in 1885 which nearly
brought the two Powers into conflict. In 1905 the opening
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS
135
of negotiations between Tibet and Russia was the reason
for the “armed mission” sent to Llassa by Lord Curzon. 44
The term mission as applied to these military expeditions
is perhaps the greatest triumph in the history of official
phraseology, though it may be doubted whether an army
of invasion is more acceptable by any other name. Lord
Salisbury’s despatch on the subject of the “ mission ” which
led to the second Afghan War may be quoted in this
connection:
“The first step, therefore, in establishing our relations
with the Ameer upon a more satisfactory footing will be
to induce him to receive a temporary embassy m his
capital. It need not be publicly connected with the establishment
of a permanent Mission within his dominions. There would be
many advantages in ostensibly directing it to some object oj
smaller political interest which it will not be difficult for lour
Excellency to find or if need be, to create. I have, therefore,
to instruct you, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government,
without any delay that you can reasonably avoid, to find
some occasion for sending a mission to Cabul; and to
press the reception of this Mission very earnestly upon
the Ameer.” 45
The “mission” in this instance, as we have already noted,
was diagnosed by the Afghans (who proved to be right)
as an army of invasion.
After the formation of the Triple Entente the fear ql
Germany largely replaced the fear of Russia in Eng is
minds; but once more there can be little doubt that British
jealousy of Germany’s activities in the East were closely
bound up with this change. As early as 1 835 Von Moltkc and
other Prussian officers had undertaken the reconstruction
of the Turkish army, and by the end of the nineteenth
century German influence had acquired a strong hold over
the Sultan’s Government. In 1898 the German Emperor
visited Syria and proclaimed himself the protector ot
Mohammedans throughout the world. 48 Britain’s distrust
of this menace to her Eastern Empire showed itseU in a
refusal to assist in the German project for a railway to
Baghdad. The plan was continued, however, with the
co-operation of Turkey. But Russian ambitions were nere
the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
hiratened almost as much as those of England, and the
l,1 '! nc nva,s of the Near East were drawn together against
.r intruder. So did the Indian Empire play its part in
inging on the world war of 1914.
AH this time, while the Indian frontier and the road to
< 1.1 had been disturbing the courts of Europe, the reper-
Nsifms of British Imperialism in India had been equally
" m the Far East. In 1837 the “Heathen Chinee” had
' lord the importation of opium and “the English Merchants
Itulta y stimulated by the high profit made from its sale
W ed it: into the country,” 47 the Indian Government,
Meanwhile, protesting strongly against the loss of revenue
MM-auoned by the reforms in China. The Chinese Govern-
iiintl seized and destroyed the smuggled opium, and for
[ Ur sakc of these “English Merchants in India” Great
hMt.un went to war in 1842. China was compelled to pay
l -1,500,000 for the cost of the war and £1,250,000 for the
Contraband opium destroyed and to grant British subjects
Immunity from Chinese justice. She was also forced to
open ’five ports— that is to say, in effect, to withdraw her
prohibition against British imports. 4 * So ended the first
' onese ar the direct result of British economic interests
In India.
iLT* 0 Second “°P iu m War” was no less discreditable 40
I "' 1 w l as c ondemned in the British Parliament at the time
, t nl * T adicals and lories. The Chauvinism of the
men on the spot rather than Indian imperial enterprise
was the immediate cause of the second and third war with
China; but inasmuch as they were rendered almost
Inevitable by the treaty that concluded the first war,
1 icy may undoubtedly be traced to the same source. No
•mvey of Indo-Chinese relations would be complete with-
out mention of British intervention in China during the
year 1927, when Indian troops were employed against
Me explicit wishes of all parties in the Indian Legislative
Assembly. The complete disregard with which this
protest was treated caused widespread resentment through-
out die country,
Hritish gains from the Creat War included Palestine;
* uu the war which has broken out between the Arab
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS ^37
population and the British Government while this book
was being written is a reminder that Palestine is held
principally for two reasons, of which one is the control of
access to the oil-fields of Irak and the other is the strategic
position of Palestine on the route to India. This latter
point was strongly brought out in a recent Parliamentary
debate on the Palestine Mandate, when the strategic
importance of Palestine was emphasised by various speakers,
including Commander Locker-Lampson and Mr. Amery. 61
It would be rash indeed to prophesy what future wars,
within the terms of Sir Austen Chamberlain s reservations
to the Kellog Pact, arc likely to arise from the British
occupation of India. During the period of intervention
against Soviet Russia the British Empire carried out an
unsuccessful crusade in Central Asia with the object ol
restoring Czardom. The failure of this campaign deprived
Britain of any rich concessions which may have been
anticipated from the grateful Romanoffs; but the tension
between the two countries remains. 62 The main danger
of war does not arise, however, from the possibilities of
further British aggression. The maintenance of the status
quo alone involves, as we have seen, ramifications of policy
that can at any time draw this country into a war in almost
any part of the world. ‘ .
Pax Britannic a in India is a form of peace that has in-
volved Great Britain in a continual succession of wars
and will produce a further succession of similar struggles
until less fortunate Powers can be made to understand
that they do not deserve and ought not to expect either
the wealth or the prestige which our ruling class enjoys. 63
Pax Britannica was so nearly endangered by the Italian
operations against Abyssinia in 1935 that only other
considerations of imperial expediency prevented a war
between Britain and Italy for the control of vital points
on the route to India. 64 With the deepening of the
economic crisis that has overtaken capitalist society, the
control of colonics assumes a growing importance to a sys-
tem that depends for its very existence upon expanding
markets and fields of investment. 65 To the younger
empires of America and Japan, to modern Germany and
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
3 K the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
jti It:Uy, this must mean ultimately conflict with Britain.
II Rome is to survive, Carthage must be destroyed.
To India, however, the price of Pax Britannica cannot
hr measured simply in terms of its ultimate cost in war.
If is true that during the nineteenth century the British
Government ^ iat country conducted no less than a
Hundred and^eleven wars, raids and military expeditions ; 66
P . that the “peace” imposed might be termed deceptive,
i|tute apart from the international wars in which the
* onq ues t of India lias involved Britain and other countries.
. ^ * s natura I enough: “The same arts that did
a power must it maintain.”
But peace, says the modern Indian nationalist (whose
history we shall shortly survey) is a doubtful blessing
u'lten combined with poverty, famine, illiteracy and
disease. Bought at a cost of national degradation, where
generations are born in inferiority and bred to a sense of
> peace is in his opinion a very manifest
evil . 57 Nor is peace universally regarded as a blessing
when purchased by the loss of political independence;
IftM witness the amazing number of countries which have
i lot yet applied, for the privilege of being ruled by Great
ill ntam. “Solitudinem faciunt, pacem apcllant,” said
I it great Roman historian of the Empire-builders in his
unn time ; 68 and we too, who have brought to India
B! ,vc . r . ty anc ^ degradation have also taught ourselves to
dignify our wilderness with the name of peace.
NOTES
' The En S lish Occupation of Egypt , by Wilfred Scawen Blunt , p. 47.
1 PP- 223-4.
* U ; e rea } ol:, j ect ^ this war is somewhat obscure; hut the French
I ililish °t?on hat 11 W f S f r Ught ,. in order t0 discovei ' a sanatorium for
£ troops may be chscred.ted. The fact that the British did not
• in occupation of Abyssinia makes the value of Italy’s new
• Olony extremely dubious. y
4 Life of Lord Lawrence , by Bosworth Smith, Vol II, p. on 0 . It was
,Kg«ed at the Welby Commission enquiry that India 1 , ad to pay for
In. Abyssinian War because English prestige was involved.
' Quoted in the Congress Report, Vol I, p. 22.
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 1 39
e Sir Charles Trevelyan’s evidence before the Parliamentary Com-
mittee on East Indian Expenditure, 1876, Vol III, p. 151.
I Evidence of the Earl of Northbrook given before the Welby Com-
mission, Vol III, p. 20.
8 Thompson’s History of India, p. 71. Afghanistan escaped annexation
for strategic reasons which were explained by Sir trancis Humphreys
(a former British Minister at Kabul) in an address to the Empire
Parliamentary Association on November igth, 1929.
* Short History of Our Times, by Justin McCarthy.
10 The policy forced upon the Indian Government with regard to
Afghanistan was vigorously opposed by Lord Northbrook as Viceroy,
His resignation in 187b was due to disagreement with Salisbury regarding
both Afghanistan and the question of cotton tarifls. According to
Lord Cromer, Northbrook “thought he saw in Lord Salisbury’s pro-
ceedings a first step towards a far more complete subordination of
India and Indian interests to England and British interests than had
heretofore existed. To a certain extent he was probably right.’’
(Quoted by Bernard Mallet in Thomas George, Earl of Northbrook,
London, 1908.)
II The term Viceroy came into use for the Governors-General of
India after 1858.
11 Hansard, vol 251, p. 923. Quoted before the Welby Commission,
vol III, p. 467.
is Short History of Our Times , by Justin McCarthy.
Lord Lawrence opposed the sending of the 4 mission and pointed
out that the Afghans had a right to resist it “bearing in mind to what
such missions often lead, and what Burne’s mission in 1836 did actually
bring upon them.” (Letter to The Times, quoted by Dutt, Vol II,
p. 430.)
11 Hansard, Vol 251, p. 926. Quoted before tire Welby Commission,
Vol III, p. 467.
18 Hansard , Vol 251, p. 935. Quoted before the Welby Commission,
Vol III, p. 467.
18 £1,200,000 out of £1,700,000. It was the view of Major-General
E. H. H. Collen, who was Military Secretary to the Government of
India, that this charge on the Indian revenues was without the slightest
justification. (Welby Commission, Vol I, p. 4 01 *)
17 This appears to have been a common vice with the Burmese, for
the Cambridge Shorter History oj India complains that the Governoi of
Rangoon in 1850 was “ a man given to liquor. (p. 824O
18 Dutt, Vol II, p. 443- ,
The Cambridge Shorter History says that commercial^ and especially
missionary opinion ran strongly in favour of annexation, and mentions
an attempt by English and Chinese merchants to bring about a revolu-
tion in 1884. (p. 827.)
r* The French, as Mr. Dodwell explains, “had nourished a policy
which they were unable or unwilling to support by foice of arms.
[Cambridge Shorter History of India , p. 828,)
10 They were also accused of having failed to pay their employees.
The sum of £73,000 represented royalties owing to the State on a big
1 11 E WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
''2 r ' Utt ‘" g r. nd scllin 8 teak - Wh “‘ ‘te case went against
‘ tBe BLirmcse Government cancelled this concession
larcrby C SdDufferin 0frer Fr “ Ch merchanB war was
1 1 1 ic haw’s objection to receiving a British" “Resident** m*,, k
*■ easily understood when it is recollected that (according to Captain
Ml Duir, the historian of the Mahrathas) a British Resident was
" °.°e a ?° (T 6 ", 1 domestic dissensions. ’* As we have seen in
mm d Cn?H Uraj '/ ad ' d ° W a ^ H m WaS n0t COnsid ered outside the rules
' Mllat Tulv tr te i ^ T Ma J° r Basu the Modern Review of
i * , J y ! 9 2 ®) said* I must say, I hate our dinlomati«;f^ f
it with few exceptions they are arrant humbugs.’* *
l.timbridge Shorter History of India, p. 824.
(* Alan Bott in P“ r ^hers. This interesting pictorial record of a
i ,^‘in a M° n ! n , UdC J a c ® ntem i>orary sketch showing “an auction
,N " f m Mandalay after the first Burmese expedition** 1 oot wa,
«r Openly spoken of in those days. * 001
U\v Daily Telegraph correspondent, Mr, Frederick Boyle in hi*
I I,slied d^patches on the Ashantee War (London 1871) has a
Ml'I'T which is naively entitled “Dividing the Spoil.” “Many times ”
c ‘ a n P ri °i^z hc r p !r? hJ m 4S2
f 1 minus capital and earned olF the treasure stored therein
ofTrt “ r dOUS Y % China has sill “ a "d P^cel'ab
J w Iks of art. It was not thought fitting that barbarians if thev
n 1 produce such things, should he permitted to retain them.
Shorter History of India, p. 829. Even to this day the u n .
I ruled by the British, and a rebellion in
H“ . , c f ushed fy th e Labour Government. For the nuroose of
" M ' 1 "' t ? nS1 ^ exploitation it was decided in 1930 to separate Burma
J 1 " c . lia - Tllls P lan wa . s opposed by the General Council of Burmese
u luueffi the'.; 1 ;: e a S arati0ni5t5 sained a decisive victory »
I . /n 'mT! hy . N : Vakil in Financial Development in Modern India
C l CVK C “ Ce f befoie Welby Commission is to the
■ ' , ,** rt gards the force sent to Suakim last vear I sav tint
'vTl'i'p 5650 Sh0Uld 1101 l,ave bc “ charged." (Quoted by Dutt,
" Hicse protests of the Indian Government are of special interest
that , eVe f n T a r atiministratio n which in no sense
»H|. ..imble to the people of India was obliged, from time to time for
mh Ives of sheer economy, to make efforts to check the rapacity of
Bl.rindkn°ro rnment * Rardy if' ^ VCr * in s P ite of this, did the coumeh
L his Co c? IT em ! r Vai1 m SUCh maUcrS ’ Since die Viceroy
| ()11 C lCl1 have no authont y except that which they derive from
• L mi'of' . was . c ? m P° sed mainly of Government officials;
El, M 1 r ‘ members being persons nominated by the Government
“f course, some safe and reliable Indians. ' c,nnlL,,t >
iM."r^ l b 0 v e an in i tl r ^-T Re P° rt * Vo1 l * P- 2 7 - The resolution was
Liii ution that kl ‘, lg t lt ’ ^ Bose English title would be sufficient
° n thdt he wa3 a bMcr fri end of the British Empire than of his
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS * 4 ^
own countrymen. For the attitude of the Indian peasants at this time
see Chapter IX. ,
Proceedings of the Imperial Legislative Council, \ ol 53, p. So-
il" The Times, July 1st, 1932.
81 (Quoted in the Congress Report, Vol I, pp. 29-30.
3 z Proceedings of the Imperial Legislative Council, Vo 57,
pp. 167-168.
33 These costs are estimated in the Congress Report at 170.7 crores
of rupees. , . . ,
»* This sum of £240,000,000 offers an interesting comparison wth
Hardingn's esdmam of ’one million of which he had said that a more
liberal contribution would be unfair to the Indian taxpayer. In hu
statement on the report of the Mesopotamia Commission in the Douse
of Lords (July 8 th, 1917)1 Hardingesaid that India had given ievery-
thing it possessed both in troops and war materials to the Imperial
Government and had been “bled absolutely white.
33 Hence Professor Gilbert Slater*s statement in the Manchester
Guardian that “if we ask ourselves why the Government . . . declar ^ ,
that we have disarmed as far as possible, why it scare les or new
more formidable types of bombing aeroplanes and poison gasses, the
obvious answer is India.” _
3 3 For a study of the methods and the ethics of imperial def ^e,
see General Lord Wolseley's Soldier's Pocket Book (London 1886)
pages 5, 169, 301, 4 i 3 i 4 * 8 , m which the General explains the folly
of chivalry and the advantages of exterminating savages.
97 It is interesting to note in this connection that by the Congo
Act of 1885 the European Powers, anticipating in part the provisions
of the Kellog Pact, agreed to respect the neutrality of the Congo Basi
m ,he ev:"< of war.’ So important! however, were the Britirh
on this occasion that in 1914, though Germany, France and Be Jg _
were all in favour of respecting the agreement, B " tain A r f e i f ^ ed ’ £ *2
Among the native peoples the war which followed in Africa dest f 0 V 5
more life than a generation of inter-tribal wars, according to Dr.
Norman Leys. {Kenya, p. 3 ° 3 -) , .
33 It is interesting to note that when a Conference was convened m
1793 to organise the first coalition against France, the British representa-
tive declared the intention of his government to conquer the French
colonies, and opposed the proposal that the Coalition P^ers shou
issue a manifesto disclaiming any intention to annex l-rench tern ry.
3 9 Prothero’s Development of the British Empire , p. Bo. _
Another significant incident of this period was_ the rest ^ a ^ n ° f
the Bourbon Monarchy in Naples under the protection of Loid Nelso ,
the story of which is told by Marjorie Bowen m Patriotic Lady . astu y
of Emma, Lady Hamilton, and the Neapolitan Revolution «/ * 799 - lt “ f^ er ‘
/sting that a reviewer or this book in the Manchester
January 3rd, 1936, says that “before the capture of Malta the English
fleet was in desperate need of a Mediterranean base, and Naples was cheap
at the price of a White Terror He describes this terror however, as
“atrocious” and says that “the arrest (by Nelson) and execution o
the republicans after a capitulation in which they had been promised
a passage to France is particularly disgusting.
T H E WHITE SAlliBS IN INI)! A
J* R, Green’s Short History of the English People.
Short History of Our Tunes ^ pp* 414, 415-
41 The full significance of Cyprus in relation to India has yet to be
realised. Before this book is published plans are likely to be in operation
- constructing an air base on the island, strengthening its mihtary
d- Irmes, and building a new naval harbour. The “Cinderella Colony”
w ine go per cent of the population are generally admitted to be
V <:, ? t y . °PP 0Se d to British occupation) is likely to replace Malta as a
lia'itetolndia 1 ° f iintlsh strate S ic preparation on the Mediterranean
0 The Development of the British Empire. This occurred under Glad-
;^ScE t and thC ° CCaSi ° n ° f Bright ’ S from
G* P. Gooch, History of Our Time ? p. 173*
hrnnl T K^ deSI ? tCh ^ datC< ? Nov - I9lh> i8 ? 5 ) was sent to Lord North-
efore his resignation and replacement by Lord Lytton The
'r!'S y tln ' 0 “{r “ M- h “ su F ress ° r - disagreed will, Salisbury's policy,
I hat. II a Mission is to be sent to Cabul, the most advisable
' ;.’ U ( SC VJ u]d be % * tate fra nkly and fully to the Ameer the real purpose
| lC Mission. The Ameer and his advisers are shrewd enough to
understand that only matters of grave political importance could
hi. luce us to send a special Mission to His Highness’s Court.”
possibility, previously exploited by Napoleon, may yet
" emerge ,n a new form. The Week (,o/6/, 93 (i) has’ published
.oteresting rumours and speculations-for vvha. they are worth-
I nrpoi mg to indicate that Japan is now “interested” in Islam to the
" ,um of tbe British Foreign Office and the Quai D’Orsay.
Empire. (This is a charming and naive
Ide text-book from which the present author quotes freely because it
™ as r ? ot specifically mentioned in the Treaty, however-
to brin^f? 6 !?^ 60110 ^ l ° the ™ ntinued trafric in this commodity helped
to bring on the second war of 1857. 1
* 1 See note 43, Chapter V.
in moV^° U !| d hC \ ^ that the legislative Assembly as constituted
n renrLentaf er ^ Monta S u ‘ Chelmsfor d reformed constitution) had
1,,,-rL character, though representation was limited by a
Instance P t«Sfi r i y franch . lse and the powers of the Assembly— as this
■ tance testifies— were in fact non-existent. It should not, however,
rferred^ d 'r 1 . the completely unrepresentative Imperial Council
H ired to earlier m this chapter.
(he AdmSr'r-^r- i I9 e th ’ !936 * Mr - Amer y (a former First Lord of
1 Stra • Go °?* a Secretar y> etc -)> said that “Palestine occupies
strategic position of immense importance. It is the Clapham Junction
Amerv an/T T^r between lhis country, Africa and Asia'.” Both
a ?. d Locker-Lamps on especially mentioned the importance of
^Palestine mandate in maintaining control of the Suez Canal.
lft "?! 3 r WaS thc . c , ai ? sc P f tbe P rofound suspicion in the U.S.S.R.
onfident th” Afgbams , tan a B“ n * Kin S Amanullah. hvestia was
inndent that the outbreak was the result of a British intrigue, and
THEY MADE A WILDERNESS 1 43
named “Aircraftsman Shaw” (thc late Colonel Lawrence) in connection
with it.
53 This is the conception of peace upon which the policy of League
of Nations enthusiasts in this country would appear to be based. C est
magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la paix,
54 This point was clearly demonstrated in a pamphlet by the present
author (Ton Remember Abyssinia ?), published in April, l 93 b- An article
in Great Britain and the East (Nov. 24th, 1935), spoke openly of the Italian
threat to the route to India and linked up this fact with the concentration
of British naval forces in the Mediterranean.
66 The Alining World and Engineering Record, (Sept. 19th, 1936)1 has
an interesting editorial note on “meddlesome legislation in Mexico,
with the ominous comment that “with all these meddlesome legislators,
the world over, the activities of the British capitalist are becoming moi e
limited. ... He will adhere to the good mining shares of the Rand,
India and other centres” (i.e. where he has political control).
69 This figure was given in a Parliamentary Report of 1899 made at
the request of John Morley. Morlcy himself is quoted by Dr. Sunderland
as having said; “First, you push on into territories where you have no
business to be, and where you had promised not to go; secondly, your
intrusion provokes resentment and resentment means resistance;
thirdly, you instantly cry out that the people are rebellious and that
their act is rebellion (this in spite of your own assurance that you have
no intention of setting up a permanent sovereignty over them); fourthly,
you send a force to stamp out the rebellion; and fifthly, having spread
bloodshed, confusion and anarchy, you declare, with hands uplilted
to the heavens, that moral reasons force you to stay, for ll you were to
leavCj this territory would be left in <s condition which no civilized power
could contemplate with equanimity or with composure. These arc the
five stages of the Rake’s Progress.” Modern Review (Calcutta) July, 1928.
Article by the late Dr. Sunderland.
67 W. J. (“ Cross-of-Gold ”) Bryan after studying conditions in India
published on his return to America a pamphlet on Bi itish j n
India and Its Results” in which he said of our government: While .
they have boasted of bringing peace to the living, they have led millions
to the peace of the grave.”
48 Tacitus in Agricola.
CHAPTER VIII
the INDIAN VILLAGER
' *'<> not understand,” said Sir Thomas Munro in ,8m
,M “ meant b y “>e Civilisation of the Hindus. In life
* in branches of science, in the knowledge of the theory
I, 'll act, .ce or S°°d government, and in education whir/
banishing prejudice and superstition, opens the mind
, '"y c lns * ru . ct ‘°n of every kind from every quarter,
I 1 ) " much mfeiior to Europeans.
L, 5n system ?f agriculture, unrivalled manu-
i nL k , ’ a , ca P‘' lclty t0 P r °duce whatever can
H ntr Imte to either convenience or luxury schools
; ; |,b ished m every village for teaching reading, writing
Ml II y among each other, and above all, l treatment
" "" fema,e , sex , fu11 of confidence, respect and delicacy
Kll. , I aid In’ r “ t° bC an aMide ° f trade b «ween
Bn ,£ ■ 1 dia » 1 arn convinc ed that England will
|>y the import cargo.” 1
[ alr f ady observed much of “the theory and
" -.1 good government” which Sir Thomas Munro’s
,'"T b «>ught with them to India. Whether they
J. , mmds free horn prejudice and “willing to
Y "“‘ruction from every quarter” (including the
”[ 11 lose over whom they ruled) is very question-
li Munro s own time there may have been some
S ' ater " ent . a but by the end of the nineteenth
II i lie British official who had Indian friends and
P.* " S|>ect for Indian institutions had become a
f! I " ,".' rlain is th . at wc ran no longer speak of “schools
I * 1 tvcr y village, so that however superior the
ftnlnn of education may have been in the time of
M4
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
*45
Sir Thomas Munro it was not imparted on a large scale
to India. On the contrary, the Indian system of education,
at one time universal throughout the Indian villages, has
disappeared. The reason for this must be sought in the
history of British administration.
In the first chapter of this book we have already observed
the illuminating reference made by Sir Charles Metcalfe
to the village communities of Northern India. That these
communities, so highly eulogised by Metcalfe in 1830,
existed in most other parts of the country, is shown in the
references made to them by early British administrators.
Thus Mountstuart Elphinstone, who for nine years 4 held
office as a Commissioner in the Bombay Presidency, wrote in
his “Report on the Territories Conquered from the Peshwa”:
“In whatever point of view we examine the Native
Government in the Deccan, the first and most important
feature is, the division into villages or townships. These
Communities contain in miniature all the materials of
a State within themselves, and are almost sufficient to
protect their members, if all other governments are
withdrawn. Though probably not compatible with a
very good form of government, they are an excellent
remedy for the imperfections of a bad one; they prevent
the bad effects of its negligence and weakness, and even
present some barrier against its tyranny and rapacity.” 5
In this report Elphinstone made a number of recommen-
dations, both positive and negative. He was opposed to
any direct attack on Hinduism for an interesting reason.
If successful, he said, such an attack upon the religion of
the people might be expected “to shake their reverence for
all religion and to set them free from those useful restraints
which even a superstitious doctrine imposes on the passions.” 6
Elphinstone found many defects in the system of adminis-
tration under the previous rulers of the Deccan, but he also
noted that “many of the evils from which this country has
hitherto been exempt are inseparable from the introduction
of a foreign Government.” For, said he,
“ . . . with all these defects, the Mahratta country
flourished, and the people seem to have been exempt
4® THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
li iim some of the evils which exist under our more perfect
Government. There must, therefore, have been some
advantages in the system to counterbalance its obvious
defects, and most of them appear to me to have origin-
■ited in one fact, that the Government, although it did
' , e to obtain justice for the people, left them the means
°* procuring it for themselves. The advantage of this
was particularly felt among the lower orders, who are
most out of reach of their rulers, and most apt to be
neglected under all Governments. By means of the
I auchayat, they were enabled to effect a tolerable
dispensation of justice among themselves; and it happens
iliat most of the objections above stated to that insti-
ll! I ion do not apply in their case. . . ,
“I propose, therefore, that the native system should
''Hi! be preserved, and means taken to remove its abuses
mu I revive its energy. Such a course will be more than
welcome to the natives than any entire change.
Our principal instrument must continue to be the
nnchayat, and that must continue to be exempt from
nil new forms, interference, and regulations on our part.”
I lie panchayat, to which Elphinstone refers, was the
•H igc council— literally the “Council of Five” I * * * * * 7 — which
K lhe government of these village communities. That
i mstone’s advice was never taken may be attributed
(lie simple fact that democracy in the villages was eom-
11 1' fy incompatible with the elaborate despotism of the
<i India Company and the British Crown. 8 * As fresh
rllories were absorbed, the judicial functions of the
Ifigt- council were usurped by British courts, of which
(•ugh has been said already in Chapter V of this book.
• village communities ceased to be self-governing
fAimc all power and authority, even to the delegated
•onus of village officials, was vested in the British
vnninent and did not in any way correspond with
i primitive institutions. Increasing poverty com*
i'll l heir disintegration and swept away with their
*ihIm w the last relics of their public services, which had
• mm time even included the supervision of local irrigation,
jli Madras — to take yet another part of the country —
putu hayat system was probably more developed than in
INDIAN VILLAGER
147
anv other province of British India; and Munro himself
laboured for years to preserve the system only to find
himself overborne by the demands of the company s
directors. 10 According to the Madras Annual Epigraph, cal
Reports an inscription on a temple wall in a.d. 91B tells
how six committees were to be elected in a village con-
taining thirty wards. The functions of these committees
included the supervision of water supplies and or justice.
On the Committee of justice a woman was to be elected,
and rules were laid down showing the methods of election
and the qualifications necessary for candidature.
Where a candidate was not elected unanimously or
with a sufficiently clear majority by oral acclamation, a
ballot was held, slips of coloured wood being used. I his
ballot was sometimes held publicly, sometimes in secret
In the courts both civil and criminal cases were heard,
the defendant being tried by his peers in a very htera
sense since he could only be condemned by fellow- crafts men
of hi; own caste and occupation.^ The laws of evidence
in use were highly commended by an English Chief Justice
of Madras, who wrote of them in the early nineteent 1
century:
“With some trifling exceptions, the Hindu doctrine of
evidence is, for the most part, distinguished nearly as
much as our own by the excellent sense that determines
the competency and designates the choice of witnesses
with the manner of examining, and the credit to be
Riven to them, as well as by the solemn earnestness,
with which the obligation of truth is urged and in-
culcated; insomuch that less cannot be said of this part
of their law, than that it will be read by every English
lawyer with a mixture of admiration and delight, as it
may be studied by him to advantage.
Sir Thomas Munro, in one of his memoranda, compares
the system of trial by panchayat with the British system of
justice which in his days was rapidly replacing it. Ot
the Indian system he says:
“The strong attachment of the Natives to trial by
Fanchyet has, no doubt, in some degree arisen from
I4 8 the WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
the dread of the venality of their rulers; but it has
probably been increased and confirmed by the con-
viction, resulting from experience, that no Judge, how-
ever upright or active, was so competent as such a body
to dispense justly, correctly and expeditiously.” 14
But of the British system Sir Thomas writes:
It is evident that our present system is not only
most expensive and vexatious, but totally inefficient.
There aie, under the Bengal Government, about one
hundred and thirty thousand suits in arrear. 16 These
suits, will, on a moderate calculation, require a million
of witnesses ; and if we consider the expense, the distance,
and the time they must be absent from their homes,
it will not be easy to estimate the amount of injury which
the country thereby sustains. But the evil, i't has been
asserted, is unavoidable, and springs from the litigious
spirit of the people of India. Had this been their real
chaiacter, it would have appeared when they paid
nothing for trials. I have had ample opportunity of
observing them in every situation, and I can affirm that
no * : I have often been astonished at
the facility with which suits among them were settled,
and at the fairness with which the losing party acknow-
ledged the claim against him. But when irritated by
expense and by delay, it is not surprising that litigation
should grow with the progress of the suit through its
tedious stages. . . . Our system produce the liti-
gation which we groundlessly impute to the character
of the people.”
In later years Sir Henry Cotton, looking back upon the
process that had uprooted the panchayat system, declared
that a costly and mechanical centralisation has taken
the place of the former system of local self-government
and local arbitration.” 16 The consequent destruction of
initiative and independence among the Indian peasantry
is .not the only deplorable result which has followed from
this process, but it is ironical that those who claim to be
fitting the Indian people for self-government should have
set about their task by destroying more democratic institu-
tions than this country has ever produced. 17
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
149
Reference has already been made to the antiquity of
this panchayat system. Megasthenes, who visited India
three centuries before Christ, described the village com-
munities as “republics” which were “almost independent
of any outside relations .” 10 The village originally owned
the land on which the villagers lived and worked, so
that before the dislocation of the peasant industries 19
many of these communities had remained, right up to
the time of British rule, economically self-contained units.
In the North of India, however, a previous succession ot
rapacious conquerors had already done much to destroy
this economic independence, and the zemindars or rent
collectors of the Moslem rulers were already acquiring
something like feudal power in pre-British days. 20
The zemindari system hardened rapidly under British
rule. In Bengal the “Permanent Settlement” of 1793
turned these revenue collectors into owners of the soi
and confirmed their status as .a landed aristocracy. 21
For a hundred and forty years since that time, while the
value of money has fallen steadily and the rents of t e
Bengal peasants have risen in proportion,, the tax paid,
by the zemindars to the Government has remained stationary,
fixed for all time by the settlement of 1793. This far-
sighted piece of legislation has enabled the landlord class
which it created to squeeze enormous sums from the
peasants by the payment of a light tax on the proceeds.
The effect of this is that whilst the Government gets a
smaller share of the spoils than it might expect by direct
taxation of the peasantry, it gains a powerful ally m a
landlord class the very existence of which is bound up
■ with the continuation of British rule. . .
To return to the subject of the panchayat system, it is
interesting to observe how numerous were its functions.
It provided against drought and flood, storing grain for
times of emergency. It formed a nucleus of social organisa-
tion when insurrection became necessary against the
oppressions of princes. 23 It provided, as Munro note
in the passage already quoted, a system of primary educa-
tion such as the country has never enjoyed since. 21 Ol this
educational system Keir Hardie wrote in his book India :
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
» 5 °
“Max Muller, oh the strength of official documents
and a Missionary Report concerning Education in
Bengal prior to the British occupation, asserts that there
were then 8o,ooo native schools in Bengal, or i to every
400 of the population. Ludlow, in his History of British
India , says that ‘In every Hindu village which has
retained its old form, I am assured that the children
generally are able to read, write and cipher, but where
we have swept away the Village System, as in Bengal,
there the village school has also disappeared.’ That,
I think, disposes effectively of the boast that we are
beginning to give education to the people of India.” 25
An official report of 1812 mentions “the schoolmaster,
who is seen teaching the children in the villages to read
and write in the sand” 28 among the normal functionaries
nl an Indian village community. Two years later the
L'ourt of Directors of the East India Company itself com-
mended “this venerable and benevolent institution of the
Hindus.” They said that it had “withstood the shock
»1 revolutions, and to its operation is ascribed the general
intelligence of the natives as scribes and accountants.” 27
As late as 1835 much of this ancient system still survived.
A Mr. Adams, who conducted an enquiry into the number
ol schools in Bengal at that time, reported that they still
existed “in all the larger villages as in the towns.” Of
(he curriculum he said that it “included reading, writing,
l lie composition of letters, elementary arithmetic and
accounts, either commercial or agricultural or both.” 28
flic same authority estimated the number of these schools
m Bengal and Bihar at 100,000 among a population which
he put at 40,000,000, giving one school to every 400 persons,
which would have made at least as high an average as
iliat which then existed in Great Britain. From this estimate
Adams calculated that there was a school for every thirty-
two boys and that these schools provided for most of the
130,000 villages through which they were distributed. 89
Whilst admitting his calculations to be only approximate,
Mr. Adams concluded that the system of village schools
was still “extensively prevalent” and “that the desire to
give education to their male children must be deeply
THE INDIAN VILLAGER * 5 *
seated in the minds of parents even of the humblest
classes.”
In commenting upon the schools, and upon the con-
trast presented by the present illiteracy of the country a0
it is important, however, not to over-emphasise the im-
portance of mere literacy or to confuse it with education.
It was the opinion of Max Muller that
“There is such a thing as social education and educa-
tion outside of books; and this education is distinctly
higher in India than in any part of Christendom.
Through recitations of ancient stories and legends,
through religious songs and passion plays, throug 1
shows and pageants, through ceremonials and sacra-
ments, through fairs and pilgrimages, the Hindu masses
all over India receive a general culture and education
which are in no way lower, but positively higher, than
the general level of culture and education received
through schools and newspapers, _ or even through the
ministrations of the churches, in Western Christian
lands. It is an education, not in the so-called three
R’s, but in humanity.” 31
This opinion is important to note, in view of the fact
that the widespread illiteracy in modern India, which
is one of the results of British rule, is so frequently urged
to-day as a reason for the inevitable continuation of the.
system which produced this illiteracy. Whether illiteracy
is really more dangerous to self-governing institutions
than a capacity to read the Daily Mail is, however, ex-
tremely debatable; and the present author found every
evidence to the contrary. 32 His conclusions were em-
bodied in an article in the Spectator a few years ago point-
ing out that in Canada Lord Durham had revealed wide-
spread illiteracy, also racial and religious conflict, in a
report which at the same time had advocated a con-
stitution based upon democratic self-government. Tfhe
real question raised was whether literacy was not hope-
lessly over-rated among us as a test of intelligence, and
this article concluded: “I submit that it is, and that a
traditional culture exists in India, independent of book-
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
V THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
•Utiitig,’ which is a better foundation for self-government
Mil die three R’s. In all that pertains to his own affairs
■'•■ no reason to regard the Indian villager as in the
Jhd inferior to his English counterpart. If England has
rn governed efficiently by kings who could not even
" l,lcir own names, I sec no reason to fear for the issue
ftc 11 -government in India.” 33
JVrhaps the most interesting point about this statement
I ut it was directly suggested by an illuminating con-
1 ‘lion with the late Mr. J. H. Whitley, ex-Speakcr of
'* Mouse of Commons, whom (he author met in Calcutta
lin ing Mr. Whitley’s tour of India with the Labour Com-
, ,m I 9 2 9 ' I 93 °- The cx-Spcakcr, who had been
mlomidly impressed with the capacity for local sclf-
vernment shown by Indian peasants, described their
r ussl0ns as some of the most sensible he had heard
-t.l was responsible for the remark about England being
,,h ; cnt, y kerned by illiterate kings; though he failed
draw the obvious conclusion that illiterate peasants
M manage even better in their own interests. 34
It is important to notice, before leaving the subject of
Jllngr self-government, that the panchayat “is always
fued as a representative body, and not as a body possess-
j* inherent authority.” 36 The popularity of panchayat
I' , already noted in the writings of Klphinstonc, is borne
Ut by the experience of Colonel Slceman, who found
K he could always get the truth more easily from Indian
| '"vs in their own village communities, where they
lr 11 before their own relations, elders and neighbours,
lime esteem is necessary to happiness, and can only
obtained by strict adherence to truth.” 36 On the
ftlpctence of these institutions wc have, in addition to
evidence already cited, the testimony of Sir John
wirnce in 1864 that “the people of India are quite
liable of administering their own affairs and the muni-
l"l (celmg is deeply rooted in them. The village com-
timhcs, each of which is a little republic, are the most
l-lmg ol Indian institutions.” 37 Similar opinions have
1 i o expressed by numerous administrators at different
men.
TIIE INDIAN VILLAGER
1 53
However, as Emerson said, “The Englishman sticks to
Ins traditions and usages, and, so Help him God, lie will
force his island by-laws down the throat of gteat countries.
.” 3B The report of the Decentralisation Commission,
appointed in 1907, mentioned that “the village still re-
mains the first unit of administration,” spoke of the village
officials “utilised and paid by Government” and even
mentioned the continued existence of panchayats “com-
pletely under the eye and hand of the district authorities.
As Mrs. Bcsant points out, “the words paid by Government
mark the gulf between the English and Indian village
systems,” whilst the supervision referred to is the negation
of real autonomy.
It lias been necessary to consider this subject at length
in order to explain the principal deficiency in the present
social organisation of India; and in turning to the exist-
ing conditions of village life this fact must be continually
borne in mind. The village of to-day bears in many
other respects the closest resemblance to the villages of
ancient India. Neither the skill of the artisan nor his
implements have greatly changed, for poverty compels
him to use the most primitive tools. The potter still fashions
his shapely earthenware upon a wheel which is little more
than a spinning-top. With its axle in a slight hollow made
in t lie hard ground he spins his wheel with the left hand
while lie builds up the pot with his right. The carpenter
works at a lathe that is made of two sticks, driven into the
earth. Fixed between them upon two spikes is the wood
upon which he is working, turned by a bowstring. He
holds the bow in his right hand, twisting the string round
the wood. With his left hand and his toes, as he squats
upon the ground, lie directs his chisel, and with amazing
rapidity produces work as fine as the most expensive
lathes in this country can display. The delicate ivory
carvings which so often amaze Europeans arc cut with
tools as simple and primitive, 39
Agriculture has changed as little. With the decline of
village industries the pressure upon the land has increased,
and individual holdings have grown smaller, but the
system is essentially unchanged. So much has been said
*54 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
on this subject that it is perhaps desirable to note the
views of two expert authorities on the cause of this “back-
u aid ness of Indian agriculture. As early as 1832 Dr.
Wallick, at that time Superintendent of the East India
Company s Botanical Garden at Calcutta, pointed out
that the problem was commonly misunderstood by Euro-
peans. lie instanced the introduction of European iron
ploughs into Bengal as a supposed improvement, and
pointed out that owing to the superficiality of the soil
those iron ploughs mingled the upper with the under
.soil, so that its quality deteriorated. 40
^ Even more important was the evidence of Dr. Voclckcr,
Consulting Chemist to thc> Royal Agricultural Society of
England in 1889. Having been sent to India to investigate
the problems ol Indian agriculture he reported that;
On one point there can be no question, viz., that
the ideas generally entertained in England, and often given
expression to even in India, that Indian agriculture is,
as a whole, primitive and backward, and that little has
oeen done to try and remedy it, are altogether errone-
ous. . . . At his best the Indian ryot is quite as good
some aspects the superior of, the average
British farmer; whilst at his worst, it can only be said
that this state is brought about largely by an absence of
facilities for improvement which is probably unequalled
m any other country, and that the ryot will struggle
. . . uncomplainingly in the face of diffi-
culties in a way that no one else would.
A or need our British farmers be surprised at what
I say, for it must be remembered that the natives of
ndia were cultivators of wheat centuries before wc in
England were. It is not likely, therefore, that their
practice should be capable of much improvement. What
does, however, prevent them from growing larger crops
is the limited facilities to which they have access, such
as the supply of water and manure. But, to take the
ordinary acts of husbandry, nowhere would one find
better instances of keeping land scrupulously clean from
weeds, of ingenuity in the device of water-raising appli-
ances, of knowledge of soils and their capabilities, as
well as the exact time to sow and to reap, as one would
THE INDIAN VILLAGER 1 55
in Indian agriculture, and this not at its best alone,
but at its ordinary level. It is wonderful, too, how
much is known of rotation, the system of mixed crops
and of fallowing. Certain it is that I, at least, have
never seen a more perfect picture of careful cultivation,
combined with hard labour, perseverance, and fertility
of resource, than I have seen in many of the Haiti ng
places in my tour.” 41
This quotation brings us back once more to the fact
that it is from no lack of knowledge or skill, but from the
conditions under which he lives that the Indian peasant
suffers. An instance indicated by Dr. Voelcker is that
of manure, of which there is a great shortage, owing to
the prevalence among Indian peasants of the habit of
using cow-dung for fuel. 42 This is not, as is commonly
supposed, a matter of ignorance or wilful waste, but a
matter of necessity. The value of cow-dung as manure
is about three times its value as fuel; 13 but as the Forest
Laws make it illegal for the peasant even to collect a few
twigs from the forests, his manure is the only fuel available.
However near he may be to forest land, he must pay for
wood, and this he cannot afford to do. 41 Consequently
lie burns his cow-dung, though he knows its value, simply
because it is the only fuel that he can obtain without
paying for it.
To meet this problem Dr. Voelcker recommended the
revival of the fodder reserves which had been a special
feature during the regime of Akbar. Nothing was done
by the authorities, however, till 1912, when the United
Provinces Government outlined afforestation schemes which
included village plantations. The fact that such schemes
have yet to be extensively applied so as to benefit the
country as a whole may be once more attributed to the
decay of the one institution which would have been com-
petent to carry the schemes out efficiently. Meanwhile
the restriction of fuel continues, with its devastating
results; and it is not without reason that the Gonds of
Central India speak to-day of “the Kali Tug, the Age of
Darkness, that began when Government took the forest
from us.” 46
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
i rfi
A normal feature of village life is debt, the average rate
nl interest being between 30 per cent and 40 per cent. 40
The money-lender enjoys a protection to-day such as no
previous regime afforded him, for the general prevalence
of law anti order has almost put an end to the ancient
< ustom of assaulting and despoiling the usurer who oppressed
-t village beyond endurance. 47 The money-lenders, like
I lie landlords, have consequently become the staunch allies
nl the Government; for (as Mr. Brails ford expresses it)
" 1 he usurer felt that its strong right arm sustained him in
his right.” 43 In Dr, Manshardt’s words the money-lender
is ‘‘one of the most hated men in India.”
in the ryotwari districts, where there arc no big landlords,
but direct payment from the peasants to the Government,
"settlements” are made periodically by which the revenue
is re-assessed. 49 Fifty per cent of the rental value was the
maximum laid down in 1924 by the Governor of Bombay
in* the guidance of revenue officials; and experience has
proved that such an assessment, even where it is not exceeded
iti practice, leaves the cultivator miserably poor. The
.ymindari system, already mentioned, is even more oppressive
In its results.
"Pressing upon the people of India in a manner to
produce great distress is the land tax, in addition to
which is the water tax in the irrigated areas. The land
tax keeps the mass of the population in a state bordering
upon slavery. Millions cannot get sufficient food. At
the end of his year of labour, the farmer finds his crop
divided between the landlord and the government. He
lias to go into debt to the village shopkeeper, getting credit
for food and seed in the ensuing year. Since 240,000,000
people in India are connected directly or indirectly
with agriculture, this means that a large majority of them,
probably two thirds, are living in a stale of squalor.” 60
Such is the opinion of a distinguished American authority,
who -points out also that
"The rural people, who form three-fourths of the
copulation . . . are without representation in the
cgislative bodies, and have no way of expressing their
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
*57
grievances. The revenues are not employed to suit
their local needs. Great irrigation works and radroad
are built and harbours are improved, but the lot oi the
farmer is unchanged. 51
In addition to their human oppressors the peasants have
in many parts of the country to contend with wild beasts
which destroy their crops and frequently attack the people
themselves. So carefully and effectively have the peasants
been disarmed by the Government that, whilst a big land-
lord may have a whole arsenal of weapons at his disposal,
it is possible to pass through any number of villages without
finding a single man who is licensed to carry a gun.
Consequently the villagers are helpless to cope with this
problem, and whilst incalculable damage is done to their
farms there is also a considerable loss of life. In the year
1033 villages in the Allahabad district were ravaged by
. wolves which carred off children and attacked men and
women. 63 During the same year 1,352 men, women and
children were killed by wild beasts in the jungles of Centra
India. 6 4
Probably, however, the worst pest that afflicts the Indian
peasant is the policeman. 66 The terror which the police
inspire can best be understood by taking as an examp e
Sections 109 and 1 10 of the Criminal Procedure Code, from
which some conception may be formed of the powers wielded
by a force whose name is a by-word for corruption.
These provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code are,
technically speaking, concerned with the prevention, anc
not the punishment, of crime, and they begin with the very
plausible assumption, that a bad character should be kept
under supervision. Theoretically a man cannot e con
victed” or "punished” under either of these sections. He
is just kept out of mischief. The United Provinces Govern-
ment Handbook on “The Practical Application of. the Bad
Livelihood Sections” 60 states, clearly that ^"Sections 109
and no are entirely preventive measures.
To take first Section no, as by far the more inteiestmg
of the two, it is designed to keep in check the "Badmash —
the bad character, that is to say. No specific charge need
the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
!>■■ proved against the individual. The necessary evidence
?! been summed up in tire Handbook quoted above as
(A Reputation, and (13) Disposition.
Hie following “widely accepted ruling” is given in this
•overnment Handbook as a definition 0 f Reputation
neighbourhood '' "' C S cnCTal °' ,inion of tbc
ltigjibouihood in winch the bad character lives It
mcnuS' 1 Jat ,‘ he r tlcnCC ,hould show that such
of d o P , IS based 0,1 the personal knowledge
general on'imV.n h n f 8hbours generally or that sud,
neighbours' iri been P^blidy expressed by his
nan’s tiZZ $ 7 ** in - the ® cncraJ of the
stnfpm, f ? b m he man 1S an habitual thief the
;,u K " ' S evidence of general repute.” (Dunia Singh
the King Emperor, 50. C203). b
The Handbook adds:
i" 1 * is not necessary that the witness should give
instances of the person’s bad character to justify d,is
information Tl *''7™ spccif >' tl,e 50u '«s of his
information so long as lie says that this is the general
opinion expressed by people about the accused ”
inter«t?nT U T t '°' , - fr0m " ,C Same ^"thority gives further
interesting information regarding “Evidence of Reputa-
,/.. 111 '‘ Wlthstandms a r " lin £ °f He Bombay Hit’ll Court to
fepme rUm ° Ur Cann0t bc he,d to bc an evidence of
JS can iS h aIre i dy T ° f j 16 bag - Wc havc here a law
(m- indisrret' C P easantl y adapted to suit the discretion
0 s " et,on ) of those who administer it. According
mem Handl'T ““T ^ ° pinion in tbc U.P. Govern
hy the Bombay 1 High CW ^ h*"™' provisions ofTcred
lurm^unnn "fT * e SC ™*' d headin 8 “disposition”
ns upon what are called “specific instances H It is
considered a “specific r , , ir 13
speciuc instance of a man’s character that
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
159
he should have been suspected by the police in their investi-
gation of some criminal case. 68 In the nature of things
one may assume that the suspicion could not bc proved,
or the accused would be standing his trial on a different
charge. The author of the Government Handbook doubts
whether it is generally advisable to prosecute a person
only once suspected, but adds: “Generally, however, a
second suspicion on good grounds should be enough to
satisfy the police officer of the guilt of a bad character.”
The “bad character” of the accused is, incidentally, the
very point which is to be proved!
Another “specific instance” of disposition is “Associa-
tion with other bad characters.” On this subject the
Handbook says: “This association can be proved by
witnesses who have seen the accused in association {it
may be in perfectly innocent acts ) 69 with others who are known
to be bad characters.” It really is a pity that the Pharisees
and Scribes had no Section no, for it is clear that eating
with publicans and sinners would come “within the
meaning of the Act.” It would also have been a splendid
measure for dealing with an Elizabeth Fry or a General
Booth.
But this is not all: “Assumed association can be proved
by simultaneous absences, especially valuable if they can
be shown to refer to occasions when offences have occurred.”
Ihc latter condition is evidently not essential. The law
has no intention of allowing even for coincidences. The
argument now runs: “You left the town last week on
the same day as A and both returned yesterday. A is
a bad character, so you must be another!” Doubtless the
usual case is not quite so palpably foolish as this. But
this is the backbone of the deduction; and if only one
possible case in a thousand is taken up, the selection is in
the hands of the police , 80
As to the actual conduct of these cases, the Government
Handbook itself makes some significant admissions, and
one illuminating extract may well be quoted in full:
“Anything to the discredit of the accused, whether
relevant or not, often whether true or not , is put forward
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
;ts evidence against him. No attempt is made to see
ili at the evidence is in accord with the particular bad
i haracter ascribed to the accused in the charge. Reputa-
tion so-called is frequently mere hearsay or rumour, or
less; frequently it is confused with evidence of dis-
position. Ipse dixils of police officers are accepted as evidence
of reputation and specific instances. No one connected
with these cases can say that it is an exaggeration of
what actually occurs, and it is indeed a matter for
surprise that in spite of these defects the large majority of
these cases end in conviction.” 61
Whatever individual cases may be cited to the contrary,
- n i r could hardly wish for a clearer proof, especially from
tin h a source, of the accepted maxim — more true in india
ilian elsewhere — that it is the magistrate's recognised
business to back up the police. 63 But the author of the
I Inn cl book realises that the backing has become too obvious,
ami in the next paragraph appeals to the police to pull
< Iw'ir weight :
“Will not the anticipated divorce of executive and
judicial functions be the death-knell to success in pre-
ventive action if improvement is to be achieved?
“Do not magistrates frequently, with a realisation of their
own responsibility , rescue cases from hopt less failure by acting
practically the role of prosecuting counsel in their own courts ?
Do they not also frequently convict on bad evidence and in-
< nherent date, ivhich would not for a moment stand the lime-
light of appeal or revision ? Salvation lying so often in the
absence of appeal.”**
I lore is the plainest insinuation in a Government publica-
llon that magistrates frequently help the police out of an
iwkward corner by convicting on bad evidence, and that
Ihe whole business is only possible because the wretched
ptisoner is either too poor or too ignorant — or perhaps
i no much intimidated — to appeal. However, as the
Handbook points out in the next paragraph. “It must
lie allowed that on paper results are good.” Or in other
words, there is a thriving trade in these cases.
The refinements of legal procedure in India are aptly
THE INDIAN VILLAGER.
1 6 1
illustrated by a reference in the Handbook to a standing
order in one district “directing that all persons acquitted m
dacoity cases' 54 should be re-arrested under this section.
Comment here is hardly necessary. The police are riot
to be baulked of their prey, and a second string is provided
for their bow. ,, fB
It should in fairness be mentioned that the law allows
the accused to produce witnesses to his good character
l„cl attempt to refute the charges brought against tarn.
These witnesses, however, must possess certain qualifica-
tions, and the list given in the Handbook is significantly
headed by “Social Standing.” As there is no inter-
mediate class between the zemindars and the peasants,
this is liable to throw the peasant or labourer on the mercy
of his landlord, who has no interest in defending his tenants,
but every interest in keeping on the right side of the police.
Section 109 is less vague in its provisions than Section 1 10,
and even resembles in some respects the English Vagrancy
Acts fas the author of the Handbook is at pains to point
out). It is designed to deal with suspicious characters,
persons “without ostensible means of subsistence” and
persons concealing themselves “with a view to commit
a cognizable offence.” Two extracts from our authority
will indicate the uses and abuses of this Section.
In the first the author of the Handbook is speaking
of common “misunderstandings” on the part, of the police,
and writes:
“It is to be feared that frequently the police embellish
their story of arrest.”
When so much hangs upon the veracity of police wit-
nesses this is scarcely a reassuring statement to read. . for
in a later paragraph we have the following statement:
“Wc have seen that for the proper conduct of a Section
no case, considerable thought and care are necessary;
but in cases under this section little mow than formal
evidence of the circumstances of arrest is sufficient to make
out a case for binding over the person sent up. lndee ,
there is no reason why in the majority of cases the police them-
selves should not provide the evidence required .
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
I 62
I he reader will notice that the Handbook speaks here
of "a case for binding over the person sent up.” The
implication of this guileless phrase must now be examined.
'fhc Handbook reiterates the purely “preventive”
natuic of these sections, yet on the very first page we read
lh.it the object is to “bind him (the prisoner) over to
behave himself, or (aj more often happens) in default of the
necessary security, to send him to jail.” The phrase
italicised should be read with due regard to the extreme
poverty of the Indian peasant and the necessity, once more,
for Social Status” and “pecuniary fitness” among the
qualifications of an adequate surety.
I he “preventive” measure is then further detailed as
follows :
If the accused fails to find sureties or to execute
his bond, he can be committed to jail and serve out his
term there, undergoing simple or rigorous imprison-
ment.”
This particular statement, it should be noted, refers
solely to Section 110, Under Section 109 the prisoner
can only be sentenced to simple imprisonment.
It will be strange news, however, to those who have
studied the art of preventing crime to learn that this object
is to be achieved by arresting “suspects” and imprisoning
them in the common jails. The argument is peculiarly
farcical in the case of “rigorous imprisonment,” which is
die punishment meted out to the worst criminals, under
conditions that make our “hard labour” look mild
indeed. 66 Persons convicted under Section no may
be imprisoned for a maximum of three years, the
longest period in the case of Section 109 being twelve
months.
Finally, the author of the Handbook, patently conscious
‘'f the defects in the system, laments that the jail must
icplace the workhouse “until the march of civilisation
n cates these more humane agencies for dealing with the
nuisance of vagrants.” And the reader is left wondering
how long the Government will wait for “the march of
civilisation.”
TIIE INDIAN VILLAGER
163
Further quotations arc unnecessary in order to establish
the extraordinary nature of these laws, together with t ic
dangerous powers they give to the police and the un-
doubted abuse of those powers. In England a jealous
watch is kept on police authority; but in India, where
the temptation of the police is enhanced by the poverty
and helplessness of the peasants, there is little or no check
on them. On the contrary, the man who dares, in spite
of the odds against him, to take action in the courts against
the police is almost sure, if he loses his case, to be promptly
tried for perjury, 67 111
In no country in the world have the police such a bad
name as they have in India. 68 Almost every Indian that
one meets has at least one personal experience ot their
corruption. In the nature ol the case they are, in ac ,
so far as the Indian members of the Service arc concerned,
composed of the worst types of men who are content to
be the tools of an alien government in whatever oppressive
measures it may choose to execute against their fellow-
countrymen. 60 Such being their reputation, most ot
them would fare ill if they had to stand their trial under
Section no. It may be said that the reputation of the
police is undeserved, but Section no makes no provision
for undeserved reputation; and if this measure were
fairly administered, almost the entire police force would
soon be in jail. But there is no attempt made at the system-
atic administration of these measures. The chief use ol
a bad law is that it can be held over the heads of individuals
as a means of coercion. Injustice cannot be impartially
administered, for that is not its purpose, and the net eflect
of the powers enjoyed by the police is to place every village
in India at the mercy of an intolerable tyranny.^
No account of the evils which afflict the Indian villages
would be complete without some reference to forced labour
and the habit, common to most officials when travelling
through the country, of obtaining food and other neces-
saries from the peasants without payment. lhe_ worst
victims of such practices are always the most primitive
peoples, such as the Gonds, of whom Mr. Verner Elwm
writes :
u
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
164
“If the Gonds had the franchise, any politician, of
whatever political complexion, could be elected if he
promised to right this evil .” 70
Mr. El win recounts how a whole tribe of Baigas aban-
doned their trade of making baskets because so many
Were taken from them by officials on the way to market
that this subsidiary industry ceased to pay. In his own
experience when Mr. El win sought to encourage the
planting of fruit trees the villagers said to him “What is
(he use ? When the fruit is ripe , the police will take it away
from us." No more poignant example could be cited of
the fatalistic despair which replaced the independent
spirit of the old village communities. This fatalism still
Miles the lives of the primitive people of whom Mr. Elwin
was writing; but throughout the greater part of India
a new force has been at work, the origin, nature and history
of which it is our next task to examine.
NOTES
1 Minutes of Evidence on the Affairs of the East India Company
(1813). Quoted by Max Muller in India , What Can It 'Teach Us ? (p. 62,)
* As early as 1853, however, a former judge and ex-member of the
Indian Board of Revenue told a Parliamentary Committee of “the
mrong feeling of dislike on the part of the ruling race in India to the
people who are ruled over” (Commons Report of 1852. Quoted by
Dutt, Vol II, p. 188).
1 See Thompson’s History of India, p. 68. Mr. J. C. Curry in his
hook on The Indian Police (London, 1932) remarks that British officers
m earlier times “tended to become either definitely Hinduised or
definitely Muslimised in cultural sympathies” and that “as late as the
'nineties there were rare survivals who had taken Mahommedan wives.”
I lr points out that the earlier officials were often interested in “Sanskrit
literature or Arabic learning” but that closer contact with Britain
has meant less contact with Indian cultural influences. Real race
prejudice as we understand it to-day probably began with the wholesale
introduction of English women into a society where they could only
breed neurosis. The wish-fulfilment of the typical “mem-sahib” —
that every Indian desires to rape her — has been the mother of many
atrocities, though most Indians find English women very unattractive.
4 1818-1827.
6 Submitted to the Governor-General in October, 1819. Quoted by
Outt, Vol I, pp. 346-352.
4 This was long the guiding principle of the East India Company
in religious matters; for which reason they refused to allow missionaries
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
165
to operate freely till 18.3, when the early Evangehcals succeeded in
EEJtaCtapw v of this book. A row mtaionsno, ^TVmoTnv
whic h strictly limited their sphere of action. Wilberforce, in his Parlia-
mentary speech on the Act of ,8.3, quoted Burke as having said of
the passage to India.” (See Mill, Vol VII, pp. 339-344 and 388-401.)
7 Elphinstone says : “ The number was never less than five, but it
has been known to be as great as fifty.” (Quoted by Wilson; Mill,
Vol VIII, p. 277.) .
. In modern times the Provincial Governments have in some cases
endeavoured to resuscitate these panchayals ; but upon s ^ h a s ^servien
that they have been doomed from the start and hailed with considerable
satisfaction in many quarters as manifest failures.
» Mr Tohn Matthai in Village Government in British India shows that
the taxation of school lands helped in this process of disintegration,
where education was concerned. ,
1. Of Munro’s efforts Dutt writes that “all these endeavours failed.
When all real power is taken away from old institutions, forms o
authority will not keep them alive. And the villagers, ^ a ^ ss f^ b y
every petty revenue officer and corrupt policeman, could no longer
work together as corporate bodies, as they had done before. Among
rule, many of them making for progress and advancement, and some of
them deplorable, the saddest change is the virtual extinction of he
forms of self-government, and the disappearance of those ancient
Village Communities of which India was the first home among
countries of the earth.” (Dutt, Vol I, pp. I5 1-2 -) ,
In view of the evidence quoted in this chapter the reader may be
interested to know that the article in the Encyclopedia BritannKa on
Village Communities does not so much as mention those ot India.
11 These facts arc given as summarized from the Epigraphical Reports
by Mrs. Bcsant in India ; Bond or Free?
18 The absence of either capital punishment or judicial torture in
the Indian Courts was noted as early as the fifth century by a Ch
traveller, named Fa Ilian, who is quoted in the first r,ia F^ r of th ^ s
the Mughals in the seventeenth century ( Voyage to Surratt, London,
ffi96). ^ J
1 » Elements of Hindu Law , by Sir Thomas Strange, p. 309-. Q« oted
bv H. II. Wilson in a footnote to Mill’s History of British India, Vol I,
i) 100 Mill himself, as Horace Wilson shows, is both inaccurate an
unfair in his chapter on the Laws of the Hindus. These laws had many
faults; but in that respect they were not unique.
14 East India Papers, Vol II, pp. 116-8 (London, 1820). Quoted by
DUt Wil , s C on, 1 quoting 2 Elphinstone, says that “the Tanchayat must have
exercised a beneficial influence, as it enjoyed great popularity; as is
THE WHITE S AH I IIS IN INDIA
i fits
piMvcd by the current phrase ‘Panch-Paramcswra, 1 Panchayat is God
Almighty.” (Mill, Vol VII, p. 278.)
11 Terrible evidence regarding these delays was quoted by Sir Henry
Nltacbey in 1820. In one case that he mentioned 192 persons were
>u tested on suspicion after a robbery. Of these 46 were kept in irons
li>i over a year. Three died and the rest were proved innocent at the
trial. (See Dutt, Vol I, pp. 320-1.)
I 1 * New India , by Sir Henry Cotton, a former Chief Commissioner
n( Assam, Sir I Ienry held that “ the people of India possess an instinctive
1 n parity for self-government.”
1 1 Speaking of India, Mr. Bernard Houghton (a retired member
1 the I.C.S.) says: “In some respects, particularly in its village
• K i;anisation, its civilisation is more democratic and better than ours.”
8 Minted by Dr. Sunderland in India in Bondage.)
1 " Brief History of the Indian People , by Sir W. W. Hunter. Mcgasthencs
«' Iso noted the complete absence of slavery in India at a time when
da very was a common institution in the West.
I * See Chapter IV.
” 0 Sir Henry Maine in Village Communities in East and I Vest (5th Edition
of 1890, p. 140), traces the growth of landlordism under Mughal and
British rule.
I I 7 his was the work of Lord Cornwallis, whose name is blessed to
lliis day by the Indian upper classes, Dutt eulogises the Permanent
Settlement in almost every reference which he makes to it. Of the
irmimunal ownership of land H. H. Wilson says: “A peculiarity in the
disposition of landed property in India which was early observable
wits its distribution among communities rather than among individuals.”
(Mill, Vo! VII, p. 301.) Wilson quotes the ancient Hindu code of
Manu in proof of the antiquity of this communal ownership,
11 For further comments on this system see Horace Alexander’s
hnhan Ferment (London, 1929), pp. 185-6, also Brailsford’s Rebel India,
(London, 1931), pp. 132-5. Reference will be made to the system in
< ' hap ter XI.
1 he Simon Report also noted the fact the big Zjemindar under the
Permanent Settlement ‘'owns extensive estates for which he may pay
lo the State a merely nominal charge fixed over a century ago and
declared to be unalterable forever, while his agricultural income is totally
exempt from income tax.” (Our italics.)
13 It would appear that Kings in the earliest times were not regarded
if. absolute monarch® in India, any more than the early Kings of England
were before the Norman Conquest. Lord Ronaldshay (now Marquis
ol Zetland) brings out this fact in India : A Bird's Eye View . (Sec
pp. 137-8.)
** Dutt (Vol II, p. 203) quotes both Munro and Elphinstone as
having reported ‘‘that elementary education had been much more
dillused in India from time immemorial than it had been in Europe.”
I It: also cites the evidence of Sir Erskine Perry in the Lords’ Second
Report of 1853.
31 Quoted by Mrs. Besant in India : Bond or Free? pp. 1 13-14.
1 he authorities referred to are quoted in greater detail on p. 62 of
Muller’s India , What Can It Peach Us?
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
167
Fifth Report of 1812. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 118. The report
contains a fine eulogy of the “simple form of municipal government
in the Indian village.
S7 Despatch of June 3rd, 1814, quoted in India: Bond or Free?
(p. 114). The despatch urged support for the native system of education,
but (as Mrs. Besant points out) three years later the Company struck
at its basis by measures which destroyed village autonomy.
sa Quoted by Mrs. Besant India: Bond or Free? p. 11 7 -
211 Adams’ Reports on Vernacular Education, 1835. His calculation
of the number of boys appears to have been based (in the absence of
census figures) on the assumption that out of every 4 00 persons 200
would be adults. If half the remaining qoo were girls, for whom no
such universal system of education existed at that time (either in India
or elsewhere) that would leave 100 boys, of whom about one-third
would be of an age for primary education— i.c. between five and
eleven years of age.
30 There arc to-day, according to the 1931 census, about 12 \ million
literate adults in British India out of a total adult population of
over 130 million — i.c,, less than 10 per cent of the population, over
twenty years of age. These figures compare very badly with the
Indian states of Cochin and Baroda; whilst in Travancore the
figures for female education show a higher percentage of literacy than
the percentage of educated males in British India. (See 193 * census,
Part I.)
31 India, What Can It Teach Us ? by Max Muller. The Baiils of Bengal
afford perhaps the best example of this unlettered culture, on which a
most illuminating article was published in the Visva-Bharati Quarterly
of January, 1929. The Baiils have a close cultural affinity with the
teachings of Kabir.
32 It may usefully be noted that even under the existing Constitution
a higher percentage of the electorate votes in illiterate India than in
educated England. Sir Samuel Hoare noted this in a particular instance,
the “backward” North-West Frontier province, where the percentage
of polling was higher in 1932 than it was in a contemporary by-election
in Marylcbone. ( The Times i April 30th, 1932.)
33 Spectator, August 2nd, 1 93 °* This article also drew a sharp distinc-
tion between democracy and the particular form of Parliamentary
Government which Western people commonly confuse with it. It
pointed out that if our Parliamentary Government could be called
democratic at all, it was certainly not the only conceivable form for
a democracy, and highly unsuited to the needs of India* which had its
own democratic tradition. The article was cjuoted at length by Sir
Donald Cameron, at that time Governor of Tanganyika, in a Memor-
andum on Native Administration; and it is interesting to note that
Sir Donald evidently considered that the same principles had a direct
bearing upon African problems.
84 It is significant that Gandhi, at the Round Table Conference,
declared that if India chose her own Constitution it would be a
Federation of Village Republics. (See Young India, Oct. 8th, 193 1 *)
36 Village Communities , by Sir Henry Maine, (p. 122.)
TIIE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
1 68
*® Quoted from SIceman’s Rambles and Recollections, by Mrs. Bcsant
in India: Bond or Free ? Mrs. Bcsant gives a similar quotation from
Mr. A. D. Campbell, I.C.S.
\V. M. Torrens, in Empire in Asia, paid the highest tribute to the
democratic character of the village communities and to their system
uf justice. He noted that the British system which replaced them was
hy comparison arbitrary, obscure and unpopular, and that the British
judges were ignorant of (he customs and languages of the people.
J7 Quoted by Mrs. Bcsant in India: Bond or Free? (p- 54)- Mrs.
ilrsant also quotes Sir Bartle Frere who wrote in 1871 that it was “an
expression of the genius of the people, as it was of the old Saxons, to
gather together in assemblies of different types to vote by tribes or
hundreds." Mr. Chisholm Anstey said that local self-government
'*is as old as the East itself.” Sir Herbert Risley described the electoral
procedure of the Indian village community as “the oldest mode of
election in the world.”
,B This remark of Emerson’s was quoted by Lord Ronaldshay in
India, A Bird's Eye View, with the comment that “the authorities of
the day went a long way towards justifying that somewhat caustic
criticism.” Ronaldshay also remarked that “Existing institutions are,
to a considerable degree, alien from the spirit of the people.” As
Secretary of State for India he has been very silent on this subject,
however.
59 The description given here of the Indian potter and the carpenter’s
lathe are from the author’s recollections of seeing these craftsmen at
work in the Central Provinces. The skill of the potter is perhaps the
more amazing, as anyone who has attempted to make pots on a perfectly
balanced wheel will realise. The distinguished Indian scientist Sir
Jagadis Bose, after demonstrating some of his remarkable experiments
to the author in London a few years ago, remarked that he had in vain
endeavoured to find craftsmen in this country or on the Continent who
could make the sensitive apparatus which he was using. In Bengal he
had given lectures on “Biology” to his artisans, with the result that
they were not only making perfect apparatus for his use, but doing
similar experiments themselves !
10 Evidence given before the Commons Committee in 1832. (Vol II,
Part I, p. 195.) Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 277.
1 1 Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture by Dr. Voelcker.
Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 277-8.
41 Mr. M. D. Chaturvedi, I.F.S., in an interesting article in The
Indian Forester (April, 1930), pointed out that “the villager ... is fully
aware of the fact that cow-dung is more valuable as manure than fuel,
although he has no pretensions to the knowledge of its chemical con-
stituents." Mr. Chaturvedi instanced the case of villagers in the district
of Budaun who were given free fuel by the Raja of Piliblut. 1 bey
“saved their cow-dung for manure and reaped a harvest they had
never known before.”
** This does not take into account the further question, elucidated
by the Royal Commission on Agriculture, that no artificial manure
really replaces farmyard manure, even if the villager could afford to
buy the former. According to a memorandum submitted to the Royal
THE INDIAN VILLAGER
169
„ ■ ■ .... r t ryq R. McCarrison, officer in charge of the
Deficiency Diseases Enquiry, animal manures contain organic substances
i S ” which arc as necessary to plant life as vitamins
arc to animal life. Hence wheat grown without animal manure receives
a deficiency of “auximones” and contains as a result a deficiency -of
‘ . • if the same weight of wheat can be produced by artificial
Ovfr a pXcTed 8 period .he cumulative effect of destroying
cow-dung is therefore to bring down the vitamin content of food-grama
to the point where Deficiency Diseases arc the inevitable icsult.
• > Wilfred Scawcn Blunt in Mia Under Rijm (pp. 24'-=) sh °£*
other evil effects of the Forcsliy Laws. No government before the
British restricted the free gathering of fuel.
is Leaves from the Jungle, by Verrier Elwin. (London, 1936.)
“arss s 'f»““
orTonct-lcndeT’ (Tire Indian Police, p. 4 *-> But on a later page he
explains 'that the Bhils are being gradually converted into poheeme .
4 8 Rebel India (London, 1931). P* 4 8 - , ,
49 Roughly speaking, Bombay, the Punjab and Madras may be
called ryLari provinces, whilst Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the United
Provinces and the Central Provinces are predominantly zemmdaru
so The New World (Problems in Political Geography), by ^aiali
Bowman, l'lI.D., Director of the American Ceyaph.c^ SocieW of
TxVw York (London, 1926.) Section on India, p. 52. On the san ;
pace Mr Bowman remarks (hat “the policy of centralize tion of the
work of the Indian Office lias been carried to a high statC °^ e ^ C1 ®J la Y e
la statcmcnl which once more bears upon the problem of village
self-government versus central bureaucracy.
Th <T R oy al" Co n 1 mission on Agriculture in India (Abridged Report
n ,6) points out that “in the olden days tanks were dug or cleaned
out x’ilL sunk and roads made or repaired by corporate action of the
villagers.” The destruction of local self-government has put an end
to such activities in most parts, . ,
si The present author visited the palace of a big landowner in th<
United Provinces who had about 200 guns of various descriptions.
Nearby wolves had been recently killing the children of villagers who
find nothing with which to protect them, h^ny ofthe pohee c ry
,,. m fi ul these are for a belter purpose. The armed police are in ettecr
an army for use against the people, and they arc ‘always in the firing
line” as Lord Lloyd says in his preface to Curry s Indian Police.
M Daily Ilernld, Feb. 12th, r 9 35 - Gandhi’s demand in ? 93 « ^ « rnas
licenses under popular control was directly related to this problem o
unprotected villages.
•< Daih Express, June .oth, .936- U » »"'? fa ' r <° *?' “
Express compared this figure with 6.5a- mC "’ Xiliere is m V et no
killed on British roads during the same year, though there is as ye
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
t'/O
iimposal for licenses under popular control to shoot motorists. (In
Afghanistan the relatives of a man killed by a cai arc, vei\ propci 1 \,
« Unwed by law to kill the driver.)
“Among the Gonds of Central India the latest research indicates
i li t l their dream-life is prc-occupied with fear and anxiety, the latter
umpired mainly by hunger and the former by terror of the police. In
ilu dream symbolism of these primitive people the policeman (so the
i muds say) is represented by a bear — the only animal which attacks without
Ci, vocation. The evidence with regard to this matter will, it is hoped,
hr published within the next few years.
»« Published by the Superintendent, Government Press, for the use
nl Police Officers and Magistrates in the U.P. This
I Undated and the present author was fortunate ever to have seen it.
I he actual power enjoyed by the police is by no means confined to
tint which is conferred upon them legally. It used to be said in India
i lint the British courts provided justice between Indian and Indian,
lie tween Englishman and Englishman, but not between English and
l udians. To-day it is more generally said that there is justice as between
the governing and official classes, also between the non-official and
oppressed classes, but never between the Government or its employees
.inti the people. The chance of any court case going against a policeman,
... any other Government employee, is extremely small. Hence the vast
extra-legal powers which the police exert in practice. It need hardly
hr added that the police are never known to take action against an
Englishman (or an Indian of the wealthy or official classes) who injures
nr insults a peasant.
47 Our italics.
14 As an example of the operation of Section no, the case of Santin-
dranath Sen, a well-known political figure in Bengal, is instructive.
During the War he was interned by order of a secret tribunal for causes
unstated; and after the War when charged (and sentenced to a year’s
Imprisonment) under Section i io, his previous internment was among
die “evidence" which the prosecution produced to prove lus bad
< haractcr.”
Our italics.
40 According to the Handbook, one “specific instance" of evil
disposition is “sleeping by day when others arc working." It is to be
hoped that the police keep a close eye on British officers and others
wklicted to a mid-day siesta.
41 Our italics.
41 See Dutt, Vol II, pp. 195-6, on the corruption of the police and
the combination of executive with judicial functions.
Our italics. The use to which this is put by the police is illustrated
by Mr. Horace Alexander in The Indian Ferment (p. 234), where he tells
how a police inspector threatened to blackmail an Indian in the Central
Provinces merely by charging him with some robberies committed in
the district. Similar cases are known to the present author.
* 4 i.e., robbery with violence.
4 4 Our italics. It should be remembered that promotion for the police
depends, as in many other countries, on "results” (i.e. the number of
TIIE INDIAN VILLAGER
I7 1
convictions obtained). Mr. Vcrrier F.lwin was actually informed by a
Sub Inspector that he had been told to ‘‘get up a aoo po t
ir he wanted promotion. (Circular letter, dated July and, . 934 -)
- In a lecture on “Imprisonment and Detention m India, Lt-Lm.
\V. G. Hamilton (late Inspector-General of I nsons in Bcnga ) f
the Fast India Association in 1930 that convicts were sail
warders, and even placed in charge o pr^ners under ma . The
system," he said, “of placing presumably innocent men awai g
under the charge of convicted crimma s is obviously mdef
The Government nevertheless continued it, pleading lack
(Journal of the. East India Association, July, 1930.) . CO nvicts.
Hoggings are frequent, and arc generally administered l by conw
Accusations of torture are equally common, though necessa c ^l-India
to substantiate. Sir Alexander Cardcw, cx-I resident of th ■
Gaol Committee, admitted in a lecture to the East India A^ocia^ ^
October 2^nd 1023, that Indian prisons were even more _ <
prlons or die olhcr civilised countries" a means of deterioration.
47 For a study of the actual operation of British justice in In ‘
reader should consider the implications of the early chapters
Osburn’s book Must England Lose India? (London, 1930). ,
4 8 The following conversation, which took place between a Ju ge
wife and the wife of a Settlement Commissioner (both Eng hsh)
heard by the present author at a tea-party in the V n [^ died 0 f
“Did you hear," said the first lady, “that one of their __ re
sunstroke and two were killed by a tiger? But none of the pa^y
hurt — weren’t they lucky!" To this the other ady rephed^ Y^hi,
won’t it make it rather hard to get beaters there next time? Lto*
conversation was repeated to an Indian m Government Senjc^ „
remarked: “They will get beaters all right: the police will see .
a » The Calcutta Statesman (March 5th, 1931) mentions an . 1 ^ cr t a ^
in the nav of police in Assam owing to the difficulty experienced m
obtaining recruits: such is the loathing with which the peasan rega
the force, in spite of its attractive opportunities.
"Leaves from the Jungle, pp. 47 ~ 48 . Mr. Elwmrepubish^
interesting extracts on the subject f
brtions with comments by Vincent Smith. Officially sue p
noTongc’r ’exist, but Mr. Elwin records that “the Baigas st.l ehertsh the
mpmnrv of an Englishman who paid them their full wages.
CHAPTER IX
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
In one of his more delightfully na'ive moments Lord
Ihilifax — Lord Irwin as he was then styled— gave the
Ml owing information to the Bengal Club at Calcutta:
“I imagine that most of the blemishes on early Com-
pany rule were attributable to the imperative instrue-
(ions of directors, urging their representatives to earn
the wherewithal with which to meet the shareholders’
desire for dividends.” 1
It will have been observed that the shareholding class
Inst neither interest nor power by the termination of the
Company’s rule. On the contrary, a new commercial
interest entered the field with the rise of the heavy indus-
tiies in Britain and the increasing necessity for exporting
Mtirplus capital. From the early ’nineties interest on
investments in India becomes a matter of growing import-
ance.
In the beginning these investments did not compete
with British industries. Railways, and even canals, which
were developed later, so far from competing with the
general plan, assisted the process of developing India as
.1 colony. 2 British manufactures were distributed by
better communication, while a larger supply of food-
si riffs and raw materials found its way to the ports, and
thence to Europe. The plantation system, so far as it
was developed, agreed equally well with this general plan.
As early as 1810, the conditions on European indigo
plantations in Bengal were officially admitted to be scan-
dalous; 3 and serious oppression continued until i860,
when the cultivation of indigo was largely abandoned by
Europeans after serious risings and disturbances among
172
INDIAN RENAISSANCE * 73
the labourers. In Assam the cultivation of tea has con-
tinued increasingly to interest British capitalists up to
the present day. As this occupation has provided some
of the earliest instances of the organisation of Indian
labour, it justifies some individual attention.
Labour for the tea plantations was recruited for many
years by means of the “Slave Law,” as it was cal ed m
India, whereby men and women who were persuaded to
s i ph a contract which they could not read, found them-
selves tied by penal clauses to work for a number of years
in the tea gardens.* “A certain amount of harshness
and oppression, at times even of downright cruelty was
officially admitted, 5 Any attempt to organise the labourers
was punishable by laws forbidding “illegal assembly.
No extensive improvement in the lot of these plantation
workers took place till 1920, when a strike at Hansara
was followed by widespread political agitation.
Mining was a later development, arising directly out
of the export of capital and the rise of the heavy mdustries.
The gold mine at Marikuppam was already by 1889 able
to pay a bonus of 50 per cent on its share capital and as
averaged a 33 per cent dividend for over fi ty years, m
addition to enormous duties paid to the Maharaja of
Mysore. The average wage in this mine, even m 1931,
was less than 1/6 per day. Like the plantations and t e
railways, mines were supplementary to the general scheme
of nineteenth century political economy.
The Government policy up to the time of the War was
to foster this system by the discouragement of all Indian
industries which could compete with those of Britain.
The British Government even intervened to suppress a
“Department of Industries” which had been set up in
ino6 under the direction of Mr. Alfred Chatterton by
the Government of Madras. 8 Following the same fisca
policy which we have already observed in the earlier part
of the century, the Government also kept tariffs at the
lowest possible figure consistent with revenue requirements.
A long table of revenue duties imposed in 1852 shows
that at that time no duty rose above 10 per cent, while
preference was given to British products m the case of
1 74
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
woollens, cotton and silk piece goods, cotton thread,
twist and yarn, metals, marine stores and books. 9 Ol
these products cotton twist and yarn, cotton and silk
goods and woollens were among the most important
imports of India; 10 from which fact it is clear that the
object of fiscal policy was to encourage the sale of British
goods. At the same time the export of food grains from
India rose steadily. 11 In Madras the inland duties con-
tinued even after their abolition in other Provinces in 1853;
and an English magistrate and revenue officer has recorded
how this taxation operated :
“It is levied upon everyone almost who docs not
cultivate land. . . If an old woman takes veget-
ables to market and sells them at the corner of the street,
she is assessed for selling vegetables. . . . But no
tax is levied upon European traders. Perhaps next
door to the man who is making a few rupees a year
there is a European trader making hundreds, but he
pays nothing.” 12
Import duties rose slightly after the Mutiny on account
of the financial difficulties of the Government; but from
1 86 1 onwards they fell steadily by a scries of reductions. 15
In 1874 the Manchester Chamber ol Commerce presented
a memorial to the Secretary of State for India demanding
I lie withdrawal of Indian tarifTs at 3 per cent on British
cotton manufacture and 3^ per cent on yarns. In a
second communication they pointed out “the baneful
operation of these duties,” which, they said, was
“abundantly confirmed by the latest advice from Bom-
bay, which shows that ... a large number of new
mills are now being projected.” 14
As a result the Indian Government imposed a 5 per cent,
duly on the import of long staple cotton, from which finer
goods could be manufactured in competition with Lan-
cashire. 16 The Tariff Act of 1875 failed, however, to
satisfy the British manufacturers; and a singular contro-
versy arose between the Viceroy and the British Government.
Lord Northbrook, though a Liberal and Free Trader,
INDIAN RENAISSANCE *75
found a small tariff on cotton goods necessary to the financial
interests of the Indian Government. On the other hand.
Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Secretary of State for
India, found a Free Trade policy necessary to conciliate
the powerful commercial interests of Lancashire. 1 *
This incident ended with Northbrook’s resignation in
1876. The following year the House of Commons passed
a resolution condemning “the duties now levied upon
cotton manufactures imported into India.” 17 This resolu-
tion was forwarded by Salisbury to the Indian Government
with the alarming comment that in India
“five more mills were about to begin work; and that
it was estimated that by the end of March 1877 there
would be 1,231,284 spindles employed in India.
In 1878 a number of articles with which Indian manu-
facturers were supposed to compete were exempted from
duty, but the Manchester Chamber of Commerce remained
unsatisfied. 19 On the other hand, even members of the
Indian Civil Service protested at the open way m which
Lancashire interests were controlling the situation. Mr.
Whitby Stokes, a member of the Viceroy’s Council, said
that “the powerful Lancashire manufacturers will be
encouraged by their second victory to new attacks on oui
revenue.” He also feared that the Indian newspapers would
publish the fact that the tariff reduction had been made
“solely in the interests of Manchester, and for the benefit
of the Conservative party, who are, it is alleged, anxious
to obtain the Lancashire vote at the coming elections.
Of course the pconlc ol India will be wrong, t ey
always must be wro. _ when they impute selfish motives
to the ruling race.” 20
Sir Alexander Arbuthnot expressed a similar opinion.
Whilst referring again to “the supposed interests of a
political party, the leaders of which deem it necessary
at any cost to retain the political support of the cotton
manufacturers of Lancashire,” Sir Alexander made reference
to a new factor in the situation which was destined to
modify the Government’s policy in the years to come.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
]7G
I 'he feeling that British policy was dictated by Manchester
manufacturers was, he said, “shared by the leading repre-
sentatives of the European mercantile community” in
Madras and Calcutta, and by “the great body of the
official hierarchy throughout India.” 21
These statements must be coupled with Whitby Stokes'
reference to the Indian press in order to grasp the nature
of 1 lie new economic influences which were growing up.
Slowly new industries were coming into being; and the
Indian mills which had so terrified Lord Salisbury and
l lie Manchester Chamber of Commerce had created a
new capitalist interest. Hence there emerges, at the
end of the nineteenth century-, an Indian capitalism, an
Indian middle-class, and a British vested interest which is
linked up with both through finance and share capital.
For the time, however, Lancashire still held the field
without serious rivalry. The remaining duties, except
those on salt and liquor (both Government monopolies
m India) were abolished in 1882. For twelve years after
this no fresh duties were imposed except a small duty on
petroleum. In 1894, however, faced with a budget
deficit of over £2,000,000, the Government imposed a
mnall duty on imports other than cotton. Later in the
.,unc year a second Tariff Act extended the tax to cotton
yarns and fabrics, but carefully imposed a countervailing
Kxcise Duty of the same amount on all Indian yarns
likely to compete with Lancashire products. 22
This time it was the Scottish manufacturers who were
(he first to express their dissatisfaction, and a deputation
liom them waited on the Secretary ol State for India in
January 1895. 23 The Lancashire mill-owners and mer-
1 hants followed suit in May. Lord George Hamilton,
who became Secretary of State in June of that year, 24
Inld the Indian Government that “the Indian ports should
he free from custom duties, as they practically were from
1882 to 1894,” and he demanded at least
“that the duties should be placed on such a footing as
will not infringe pledges that have been given or afford
ground for continued complaint and attack.” 26
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
177
Following these instructions, the tax on yarns was
removed by the Indian Government, and the tarifT on
cotton goods was reduced to 3^ per cent with a counter-
vailing excise duty which applied without discrimination
to all Indian cotton goods. 26
The reader in possession of these facts will learn withou
shock that
“ Sometime prior to the War certain attempts to encourage
Indian industries by means of pioneer factories and
Government subsidies were effectively discouraged fiom
Whitehall.” 27
Whilst the pressure on agriculture continued (which was
later to a fiord Dr. Mann such remarkable data in his studies
of the decrease in individual holdings in the Deccan)
industries were, however, as we have already noted, slowly
coming into being.
For climatic reasons it was in Bombay that the cotto
industry first developed on factory lines; and it is this i act
which had placed on a level with the older British settle-
ments of Calcutta and Madras the “pestilential hole lor
which John Company once paid £10 per annum as rent
to the British Grown. , . ' ,
A writer in 1889 tells us that Bombay already housed
800,000 people. His description of the native town at
night is interesting, as much for the attitude it betrays in
the writer himself as for its account of conditions which
have remained unchanged to the present day, except that
the over-crowding is probably a great deal worse. The town,
he writes, on a hot night,
“is what a field of battle would be if the dead and
wounded were shrouded as they fell. The foot-pavements
on both sides are strewn with sleeping Hindus, enveloped
with a white cloth covering them from head to loot.
They lie on the pathway in every position ol lassitude
and fatigue, an army of snoring, happy natives.
It is not, perhaps, irrelevant to contrast at this point
the lot of these “happy natives” with that of their British
178 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
trustees, as depicted by the same writer. “Some people,’’
he tells us, “do not like Bombay. They weary of its beauty.”
But it seems there were compensations :
“If a man care nothing for riding, driving, hunting
(jackals), billiards, whist, dancing, dining, yachting,
cricket, badminton, lawn tennis, golf or good company
he will find the time hang heavy on his hands. But some
mortals there arc who can find in these diversions — or
some of them— the wherewithal to pass time not un-
pleasantly, and for those there is no better place than
Bombay to live in with — say — £3,000 a year to live on.” ” J
From this extract it will be clear that by 1889 the While
Man’s Burden had come to roost in Bombay. What was
more important, however, was the gradual emergence
among the Indian urban population of new class categories
which were in the coming years to replace the rigidity of
the antiquated system of caste.
It must not be forgotten that the castes themselves were
originally trade guilds. The Marquess of Zetland has traced
the evolution of the caste system from craft and merchant
guilds which “came into being spontaneously, and them-
selves evolved the laws by which their activities were
governed.” These laws, he asserts, “according to the
ancient law-books of the country, commanded recognition
at the hands of the King.” The central government was, in
fact, the executive authority by which the laws of the
guilds were enforced ; and Zetland carefully contrasts the
position of these autonomous organisations with the local
authorities in Great Britain whose powers have devolved
from that of the Central Government. 30
Under the centralised despotism of the Mughals and the
British this guild system, like the village organisation, had
undergone profound changes. Caste had become merely
a complex arrangement of hereditary barriers, excluding
the various sections of Hindu society from one another and
the whole social organism from any progressive influence.
It had, in short, degenerated into a religious refuge for a
race that sought mystic consolation for a material catas-
trophe. 8 1
INDIAN' renaissance
Industrialism, wherever its influence was felt, meant the
inevitable destruction of this system. But the social evolution
of new classes as experienced in Western countries was
complicated in India by two inter-related factors. In the
first place there was the foreign government, representing
vast economic interests antagonistic to the industrial
development of India. And secondly there was the dis-
contented Indian intelligentsia.
The historical origin of the intelligentsia and of its dis-
content is to be round in the policy, associated especially
with the name of Macaulay, whereby the East India Com-
pany attempted to create a distinct class among the Indian
peoples, which was to be educated on the Western model.
The purpose of this class was to fill the minor positions m
the administration, which were considered neither
sufficiently dignified nor sufficiently lucrative for English-
men. 33 Acting upon a familiar principle, the Government
kept down the cost of its clerical labour by maintaining a
supply of babus in excess of the demand. Whilst, however
a small margin of unemployment has generally P r ° ve
profitable to capitalist enterprise by its effect upon labour
costs, the effect in this particular instance can hardly have
been regarded with undiluted satisfaction. For it was
from the discontented intelligentsia and its demand _ lor
increased opportunities that Indian nationalism came into
being. . , . ,
With the early days of nationalism there is no need to
concern ourselves at any length. Compared with the political
issues which have roused hundreds of millions in India
to-day, the problems that concerned these early nationalists
were as trivial as the number of individuals involved.
Nevertheless, in historical perspective these men have their
importance and their names are justly honoured in modern
India 34
The demands of these early nationalists were mainly
valid but all utterly inadequate. Mr. G. K. Gokhalc, who
was probably the greatest of them, gave considerable
publicity to the demand for the Indianisation. of the
Services. 35 His evidence before the Welby Commission
is of some interest, both from the point of view of infor-
N
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
I Mo
million and as an indication of the nature of the nationalist
ilemand in the ’nineties.
Mr. Gokhale showed that, according to a Parliamentary
i r i urn of May, 1892, 2,388 officers, drawing 10,000 rupees
Jin annum or over, were employed in the higher branches
<i| l he civil and military departments. Of these only sixty
were Indians “and even these,” said Gokhale, “with the
1 m epdon of such as are Judges, stop at a comparatively low
level.” Totalling the salaries of these higher grades he
Imwcd that forty-two million rupees went annually into
"European” (that is to say, in practice, British) pockets
m against one million that was received by Indians. In
I hr railways, operated under Government contracts, and
Imanced (as we have seen) by the Indian taxes, all officers
drawing over 10,000 rupees were, without exception,
I iimpcans. In addition to salaries, said Mr. Gokhale, “there
in c besides heavy pension and furlough charges, more than
I I n re and a half millions sterling being paid to Europeans
m England for the purpose in 1890.” 36
In criticising the excessive cost of the British bureaucracy
III id (he manipulation of governmental machinery to provide
lui t.vtive posts for members of the ruling race, the nationalists
in circled the growing tribute which British capitalism was
(ih .ulily increasing by more devious means. Plantations,
mines and railways, as we have already observed, were all
p.u l of this general scheme of exploitation. The “national
lli bt,” which nationalism had not yet dared to challenge,
was equally important. 37 The next step in the development
■ *! nationalist agitation arose from a natural convergence
1 1 he intellectuals and the industrialists, resulting in the
1I1 mand for “fiscal autonomy” in order that the rising
Industries of India might be protected against those of
l.nncashire, which were entrenched, as we have seen, by a
In. 1 wired years of discriminatory legislation.
In spite of the appalling poverty of the peasants there
wmh as yet no sign of political activity among them. The
I nd ian National Congress, founded in 1885, remained for
yi nrs a small organization without mass contacts, though
urn without influence. 38 In the early nineteenth century
• In re was already a marked schism between the “ Extremists ”
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
181
(led by Tilak) and the Moderates. The bureaucracy, aware
of future possibilities, showed its apprehension as the
“Extremists” increased in strength; but it was not till
the end of the War of 1914-18 that the Congress, under the
leadership of Gandhi, emerged as a national party with
strong popular support.
The years before the War were nevertheless marked by
sufficient “unrest” to cause disturbance to the mental
composure of the ruling race. Indian terrorists succeeded
in some notable coups , of which the assassination ol bir
Curzon Wyllic in 1909 was probably the most notable.
Mr. Wilfred Scawcn Blunt in his diaries makes an interest-
ing comparison between the “religious horror” of the whole
English Press at this event and its applause for exactly
such crimes in Italy fifty years ago and in Russia the other
day.” 39 He records a conversation with Winston Churchill,
at that time a member of the Liberal Government, in which
Churchill “quoted with admiration” the last words of the
Indian assassin “as the finest ever made in the name oi
patriotism.” 40 . T ,.
The reply of pre-war Liberalism in Britain to Indian
Nationalism and Terrorism was the same judicious mixture
of repression and “reform” that has since become the
recognised remedy. 41 Lord Morlcy, like many a Liberal
and Labour politician since, adopted as Secretary of State
for India all the measures that he had condemned when in
opposition. By a Press Law in June, 1908, he authorised t le
confiscation without any trial of printing presses where
“sedition” had been printed. The following month the
Indian leader Tilak was deported to the Andaman Islands
for publishing a “seditious” article in his paper. Scawen
Blunt commented that “Morley is playing the high old
Russian game there, and there is not a man in the House
of Commons to ask a question about it. 42
The other side of this picture was the reform of the
Constitution under Morlcy and the contemporary Viceroy,
Lord Minto, 43 The announcement of “reform’ was
heralded by the imprisonment of leading Indian nationalists
and newspaper editors. 44 Provincial Councils with ‘ un-
official” majorities were given a pretence of authority
182 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
and one Indian, to be nominated by the Viceroy, was to
have a place on the Executive Council. As Blunt predicted,
a “tame man” was invariably chosen for this last post.
The “ unofficial ” Council majorities included Anglo-Indian
non-officials, so that Government nominees and Europeans
combined to control even these sham legislatures. Such,
however, was the caution of the Liberal reformers that they
vested powers in the Government to veto the candidature
of any Indian, lest even a statutory minority should prove
a troublesome opposition.
The truth of Lord Lvtton’s words had been demonstrated,
that “we have to choose between prohibiting them and
cheating them, and wc have chosen the less straightforward
course.” 46 The year 1914, however, was to inaugurate an
era of perjured promises and pledges such as no previous
age had' known; and India was not forgotten by the prophets
of Jam Tomorrow. In response to the vagaries of White-
hall and Delhi, most of the nationalist leaders declared for
co-operation in the fight for democracy, in the childish
belief that they were to have a share in this democracy when
it had been “saved.”
Among the peasants there seems to have been more
shrewdness of insight. With such knowledge as they had
of outside affairs, the people of the villages had applauded
the Boer successes in the Boer War, and their sympathies
were now, once more, with the enemies of their own Govern-
ment. They even rejoiced at the fall of ICut, 111 spite of the
fact that Indian soldiers were defending it, and wanted
to know “who these cursed Americans could be, who had
come to rescue the defeated English.” 46
Among the exceptions to this general rule were Christian
converts. 4 7 A pamphlet published by the Church Missionary
Society, entitled In Tiger Jungles , is quoted by Mr. Elwin
as showing the “progress of Christian spirit among the
Gonds,” and an extract shows how this spirit operated
during the War:
“That the teaching given to the young has not been
without result was strikingly illustrated during the war.
The efforts of Government to gain recruits from the
Gonds met with little or no response, and an appeal was
INDIAN RENAISSANCE 183
made to Christian Gonds. As a result, 25 per cent of
the eligible men joined up, and through them many non-
Christian Gonds. To show its appreciation the Govern-
ment inserted a special paragraph in the Crazelte^ praising
in glowing terms the Christian community and holding it
up as a pattern of good citizenship and loyalty.” 48
Agitation against the Government developed as the War
progressed, and as early as December, 1914) 3 - general
rising was planned, to begin in Bengal and the Punjab. 49
Thanks to the elaborate espionage system of the Govern-
ment, such plans were frustrated; but national feeling was
further incensed by the Defence of India Act, which (not
for the first or last time in the history of the British Raj)
legalised imprisonment without trial.
With the entry of Turkey into the War the Indian
Moslems were roused by what they conceived to be their
common interest with the Turkish Sultan, as head of the
Islamic world. 50 The Khilafat Movement was the spon-
taneous expression of this solidarity. At the same time the
Nationalist leaders were disillusioned by such measures
as the Defence of India Act, which bore no superficial
resemblance to that democracy in defence of which they had
been persuaded to co-operate.
The war ended with even louder talk of self-deter-
mination,” sponsored by President W'ilson, as one of the
war aims of the Allied Powers. 51 The Russian Revolution
kindled a new flame, destined to outlive the fantasies, of
liberalism. These “pathetic and delusive hopes,” writes
Mr. Dodwcll, “seemed to promise the advent of an age
when power and interests would be subordinated to
argument and ideals.” Nationalism took the field once
more, demanding Home Rule and, as an immediate
objective, the repeal of the 1910 Press Act.
The end of the War was celebrated in Delhi by fresh
repressive measures. The infamous Rowlatt Acts aroused
a storm of indignation in which the Nationalists united
with the Khilafat Movement. These Acts provided for
arrests without warrants and indefinite detention without
trial. Where trials took place they could be held in secret,
and their proceedings were not to be made public. The
1 84 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
accused could be kept in ignorance of the names of his
accusers and of witnesses against him, with whom he was
not to be confronted. No counsel was allowed to the
accused, if tried under these Acts; all legal procedure could
be disregarded and against the sentence there was no right
of appeal. In addition to these judicial innovations, cx-
political offenders were made to deposit securities and for-
bidden to take part in any political, educational, or religious
activities. 5 2
In the agitation of 1919, which followed the passing of
the Rowlatt Acts, the Punjab took the lead. The situation
at Amritsar became so serious that the Government resorted
to open terrorism. After a series of brutalities which pro-
voked reprisals on the part of the Punjabis, a massacre
was ordered at Jalianwala Bagh as a conclusive demon-
stration of the Government’s power. 53
This incident was so horrible that for nearly eight months
all news of it was officially suppressed, during which period
neither the Parliament nor the Press of Britain discussed
the matter. When at last it was officially admitted, a Com-
mission of Enquiry was appointed under the chairmanship
of Lord Hunter, to investigate the facts. 04 The report of
this Commission showed that a public meeting, convened
at the Jalianwala Bagh, had been prohibited at the last
moment. General Dyer then marched on the place (which
was a public garden with only one entrance) and occupied
the only outlet with his troops. The crowd being thus
unable to disperse, Dyer ordered his troops to fire.
General Dyer admitted before the Hunter Commission
that there was no question ofhis men having been attacked.
“I had made up my mind,” he said, “that I would do
all the men to death if they were going to continue the
meeting.” 55 Asked whether he redirected his fire from time
to time to where the crowd was thickest, he admitted that
he had done so. 66 He had committed this “horrible act,” lie
said, because he “thought it would be doing a jolly lot of
good and they would realise they were not to be wicked.”
The Hunter Commission estimated that 379 persons were
killed and 1,200 wounded, though these figures arc univer-
sally considered in India to be an underestimate. 57
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
185
Following the massacre, which has often been excused
as an act of panic, a deliberate and diabolical regime of
terror was established in the city. No Indian will ever
forget General Dyer’s “crawling order” by which all
Indians who passed along a particular street were made to
crawl on their bellies, on pain of instant death. 58 For the
slightest indication of “disrespect” to their British masters
Indians were publicly flogged, while military tribunals
sat daily, dealing out summary “justice” against which
(here was no appeal. Water supplies were cut off from
Indian houses and prisoners were kept in open cages under
the scorching sun.
Throughout the whole of the Punjab martial law was
imposed. Eighteen death sentences were passed and
immediately carried out, while twenty-eight persons were
sentenced to transportation for life. To prevent news from
reaching the outside world, no one was allowed to enter or
leave the Province. Meanwhile an inestimable number of
people were killed by the bombing of Punjab villages from
the air, and armoured trains which pulled up in these
villages massacred all inhabitants within range by indis-
criminate firing from machine guns. 60 In one town the
biggest schoolboys were flogged, apparently to encourage
the others, and at Lahore all students were forced to attend
a roll-call four times a day. 60
Dyer justified his action on the ground that he saved
India from revolution. Whether this was the case or not,
he certainly did more than any other man to arouse a
revolutionary mentality in the Indian people. All over
the country meetings of protest were held as the news
of the Punjab horrors gradually became known. Festivities
organised by the Government to celebrate the Allied victory
were boycotted, and the Government’s processions passed
down empty streets, where the shops were closed in token
of national mourning. 61
The last act of the Amritsar tragedy was the virtual
endorsement of all the actions of the military by a Govern-
ment which clearly deplored the clumsiness rather than
the crime. As a face-saving measure, Dyer was deprived
of his command and retired with a pension, while a few
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
1 1 it officers were removed to positions in other parts of
ir rountry, where they received the treatment due to
fines and martyrs. 62 The Viceroy {Lord Chelmsford)
ini the Governor of the Punjab (Sir Michael O’Dwyer)
It* praised for their conduct in abetting these atrocities, 63
<1 not a single officer or official received any harsher
ntment than the “punishment” of General Dyer.
The blood of Amritsar proved, however, to be the seed
(lie National Congress. From a policy of co-operation
lili further projected “reforms,” it swung round to non-
operation. In 1920 Congress declared for a policy which
1 hided the surrender of all Government titles and offices,
hr boycott of all Government public functions, of Govern-
ent schools and colleges, and of the new legislatures about
be established under the Montagu-Chelmsford Consti-
11 1 inn. A boycott of foreign goods completed the programme,
ud ensured the support of the Indian capitalist class.
With a more radical programme and a clearer demand
|l)t- Home Rule (Swaraj) as the goal of Nationalism, the
Congress at last made contact with the Indian peasants,
mid in every future struggle was able to command mass
Mipport in the Indian villages. 04 Here the cver-incrcasing
loverty proved good soil for a political leadership that
1 .id been too long delayed. The ideology of the Congress
was as yet crude, its mass contact a matter of spasmodic
appeals; but both represented new developments of the
highest importance, and for both developments Mr. Gandhi,
more than any other individual, was personally responsible.
No fairer or more balanced account of Mr. Gandhi’s
place in Indian history will probably be written in years
In come than that of his great socialist contemporary,
(awaharlal Nehru. Nehru contends that the Indian
nationalist movement must be criticised as a bourgeois
movement, representing a natural historical development.
“Gandhi represented that movement and the Indian
masses in relation to that movement to a supreme degree,
and he became the voice of the Indian people to that
extent. He functioned inevitably within the orbit of
nationalist ideology, but the dominating passion that
consumed him was a desire to raise the masses.” 66
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
187
According to Nehru, Gandhi largely succeeded through
the Congress in changing the Indian peasants, “from a
demoralised, timid and hopeless mass, bullied and crushed
by every dominant interest, into a people with self-respect
and self-reliance, resisting tyranny, and capable of united
action and sacrifice for a larger cause.” No more could be
expected from a national movement or a nationalist leader;
but this vital transformation, the necessary historical pre-
cursor of any socialist movement, was brought about
under Gandhi’s personal leadership. 68
As Nehru shows, this leadership would not have proved
effective if the circumstances had not been favourable.
“But,” he adds, “a great leader is necessary to take advan-
tage of circumstances and conditions.” The fact that
“the British Government considered him their most
dangerous opponent” was in Nehru’s view sufficient
evidence of Gandhi’s objective value, “while groups with
a more advanced ideology functioned largely in the air”
because they could not adjust themselves to the epoch
in which they were living or the people whom they wished
to influence. 67
Viewed historically the early Non-co-operation Move-
ment was little more than a dress rehearsal for the great
popular movements of 1930 and 1932. 08 At the very point
when the movement was to have developed into mass
“civil disobedience,” it was checked by Gandhi himself
on the ground that non-violence was an essential basis
for such a movement, and that the people had in several
places made reprisals against the violence of the Govern-
ment. 60 Characteristically the Government waited until
Gandhi had called off the civil disobedience movement
and defeated his critics at the annual meeting of the Congress
in February 1922. It then arrested Gandhi and sentenced
him for “causing disaffection.”
In a country where its celebrated prisoner, before incar-
ceration, had restored “law and order,” the Government
was now able to introduce its “reforms” in almost ideal
conditions. Under the Montagu-Chelmsford constitution
India was henceforward to be governed by a “di-archy.”
Strictly limited powers were accorded to an All-India
I 88 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Legislative Assembly, where nearly one-third of the members
were nominated by the Government, the rest being elected
on a complicated property franchise, representing 0.5 per
cent of the Indian people. In the upper house, known as
the Council of State, there was a permanent majority of
persons either nominated by the Government or appointed
to represent special interests, the- electorate being even
smaller. All matters of -vital importance, such as the armed
forces and foreign relations, remained under the direct
control of the Governor-General, acting as the representative
of the British Government and responsible only (through
the Secretary of State for India) to the British Parliament.
To complicate this somewhat laboured practical joke,
(he Governor-General retained powers (in no sense purely
nominal) to veto legislation passed by these mock repre-
sentative institutions, with additional authority to “ certify”
bills rejected by the Legislative Assembly if he considered
this necessary for “peace, order and good government.” 70
Provincial Councils were set up on the same plan, with
an electorate which excluded all but 3 per cent of the
people. 71 Departments “reserved” from their control
included Revenue, Finance, Forests (except in the case of
Bombay), Irrigation, and — of course — “Law and Order.”
Indian Ministers responsible to the Councils were allowed
to amuse themselves with a few departments in which they
could do no damage to British interests, their activities
being effectively limited by the small amount of money
left for their use after the “reserved” departments were
all satisfied. 72 Departments “transferred” to the Councils
included on their permanent staffs members of the Civil
Service, who could not be removed or disciplined in any
way by the Indian ministers whose orders they were sup-
posed to obey. These “covenanted” officials remained
responsible only to the Governor-General, and could only
be dismissed by the Secretary of State for India. 73
Lest such enormous powers in Indian hands should prove
fatal to the Empire, a last resort was left to the Viceroy,
who was empowered to issue “ordinances,” having all the
force of law and superseding all existing legislation. In
Chapter XV of this book we shall endeavour to examine
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
189
the use of this Viceregal authority to transform a sham
constitution, by a few strokes of the pen, into an open
dictatorship such as Mussolini himself might envy.
The years 1922 to 1927 were marked by little that was
spectacular in the political field. A Labour Government
in Britain came and went, administering a despotic system
with competence and efficiency worthy of the best Con-
servative traditions. 7 4 While the ablest political minds were
employed in unobtrusive education and propaganda among
the masses, a few explored the possibilities of the new
constitution sufficiently thoroughly to disillusion everyone
else, even where they failed to achieve this result for them-
selves. Meanwhile the steady growth of Indian capitalism
and the requirements of British interests in Indian industries
made further administrative changes imperative; and the
continued leftward drift of Congress pointed to the necessity
for granting concessions that would conciliate moderate
opinion and isolate the “extremists.”
In 1927 the Simon Commission was therefore appointed
to examine the working of the Indian Constitution. No
Indian was appointed to the Commission because, as Mr.
Baldwin explained to the House of Commons, “When
God wants a hard thing done, he tells it to His English-
men.” 75 In full knowledge that the Commission was to
be boycotted in India, the Labour Party agreed to co-
operate with it, and two Labour representatives were
appointed among its members. 7 5 While this Commission
roamed around India interviewing tame Indians and British
bureaucrats, a committee of all the Indian political parties
drew up a constitution, based on the minimum demand of
Domin ion Status and the fundamental right of adult suffrage.
By 1928 it was clear that big political developments
were about to occur throughout India. In Bardoli 87,000
peasants defied the Bombay Government and after a
prolonged struggle won the substance of their demand.
They fought against an increased assessment of their
taxes, and by a complete and united refusal to pay any
tax whatsoever they succeeded in obtaining terms much
more favourable to themselves than those which the Govern-
ment had originally sought to impose. 77 Meanwhile among
H)0
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
(he dominant political groups disillusionment was complete.
The Government had planned two sham constitutions and
was manifestly in the process of manufacturing a third,
(his time with the hearty co-operation of the Labour
Tarty. Indian nationalism had discovered the abysmal void
behind the verbosity of Macdonald which England was to
discover a few years later. "They recognise,” wrote Horace
Alexander in 1929, “a few I.L.P. idealists as their only
remaining friends in England.” But these they judged to
be "few, feeble and helpless.” 78
I he boycott of the Simon Commission was extremely
effective; and all that troops, armoured cars and armed
police could do to quell demonstrations against it did not
prevent the hostility of the populace from being shown
everywhere the Commission travelled, 79 The arrest in
March, 1929, of the most active working-class and trade
union leaders, who were charged at Meerut with "con-
spiracy to deprive the King of the Sovereignty of British
India,” was a dramatic indication that the Indian working-
class could no longer be regarded as a pawn on the political
chess-board, but was beginning to take the lead in what
bad now become a straight fight between the mass of the
Indian people and the British Government.
In the same year Labour returned to office for the
second time in Britain. The pompous announcement of the
Round Table Conference in November, 1929, was followed
by questions regarding the terms on which the Conference
was to meet. Lord Irwin made it as clear as Viceregal
language permits that the delegates to this Conference
were to be nominated by himself without the slightest
regard to the relative strength or popular support of the
various interests concerned. He also admitted that the
Conference would not meet as a predominantly Indian
Conference to devise a constitution for a self-governing
India, but merely to talk of everything or nothing, leaving
all decisions to the British Parliament. In the meantime
political prisoners were to remain in jail, prosecutions for
"sedition” were to continue (including the Meerut Trial)
and the whole machinery of autocracy and repression was
to remain in operation without (he slightest modification. 80
INDIAN RENAISSANCE
l 9 l
In these circumstances the National Congress, meeting
at Lahore in December, 1929, rejected all co-operation
with (he Round Table Conference, declared for complete
independence as the national goal, and agreed to the
commencement of Civil Disobedience in itj^o. 81 T.he illegal
manufacture of salt was selected as the first challenge to
Governmental authority, for reasons that are more obvious
to the Indian mind than they can ever be to the people of
this country. Salt is in India a Government monopoly ,
and even the crystallising of salt from sea-water is conse-
quently illegal. The unpopularity ol the salt-tax is proverbial
and derives from the appalling poverty of the people, who
resent deeply the payment ol an inflated price for a com-
modity which, in many parts of the country, they can
manufacture for themselves without any cost. 82
The struggle which began in April, 1930, continued till
1932, except for the temporary and partial cessation of
activity in 1931- Gandhi’s greatest blunder, the "truce
which enabled him to waste a few months at the Round
Table Conference in spite of previous pledges, proved,
however, to be fatal to Indian nationalism. What Geneva
did for the Communist Party, what Parliament has done
for so many British socialists, the Round Table Conference
achieved in the case of the Indian nationalists. Never was
expediency more clearly shown to be the short cut to ruin.
Peace, as Clcmcnccau said, is war continued by other
means. Before Gandhi had left London on his icturn
journey the Government, which had used the truce to
consolidate its forces and recovered largely from its loss
of prestige in I93® — 3L had launched a counter-offensive.
One of the most drastic ordinances ever promulgated in
India was proclaimed in Bengal, and a reign of terror in
the North-West Frontier Province broke the nationalist
movement in what had become its strongest centre. We
shall consider later, in relation to another subject, the
record of repression during the whole of this period from
1 930 to 1932. 83 In this brief survey of recent events it is
sufficient to note that since 1932 there has been a lull in
political activity comparable to that which followed the
debacle of 1922. But it has not been without important
T 9 2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
developments, as the next two chapters will show. And the
year 1 937 j ] 93°> bring into the political arena the
new forces which have grown up in the shadow of these
uneventful years.
NOTES
Indian Problems. Speeches by Lord Irwin. London, 1931 (p, 242).
Railways must appear to an Indian to be rather like huge iron
suckers, taking the corn out of the country for Europe,” writes Lt.-Col.
Osburn (Must England Lose India? London, 1930).
A Government Circular, dated July 13th, 1810, refers to charges
against the planters established beyond all doubt or dispute,” which
included illegal detentions, floggings, and “Arts of violence, which,
although they amount not in t lie legal sense to murder, have occasioned
the death of natives* Indigo plantations still exist in India } and
oppicssion on the plantations in Chaniparan was the subject of one of
Gandhi's numerous campaigns.
4 The Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act (1859) which was not
repealed until 1926. It was, however, modified in 1901 and 1920
because conditions were so scandalous that they became notorious
throughout India and labour could not be obtained for an expanding
industry.
Report on Labour Immigration into Assam (1886). The same authority
indicates organised opposition among the workers, under the title of
turbulence, conspiracies and maliciously concocted charges/'
Trade Unionism and Labour Disputes in Indta s hy Dr. Ahmad Mukhtar,
In 1921, duung the Non-co-operation Movement, there was an exodus
of nearly 6>ooo labourers and dependents from the Assam tea gardens.
As late as 193* Whitley Report revealed that children worked in
these plantations as soon as they could walk / 1 This authority gave
wage figures as Men; 15s, to fi; Women : 12s. to 16s.:
Children : 8s. to 1 is.
Major Grali am I ole in his book, I Refer to Indux y cites the case of an
English tea-planter who kicked a worker to death, but was acquitted
of murder. This case in 1925 and a similar one in 1920 indicate that
licensed brutality still rules the plantations.
1 An ex-editor of the Times of India f Sir Valentine Chirot, stated that
Our record in regaid to Indian industrial development has not always
been a very ci editable one in the past, and it was only under the pressure
of war necessities that Government was driven to abandon its former
attitude of aloofness, if not jealousy, towards Indian enterprise.”
(Observer, April 2nd, 1922.)
The Department was engaged in research, and after its suppression
Chatter ton took service with the Indian State of Mysore. See Rebel
India , by H. N. Brailsford, p, 123.
* Dutt, Vol II, p. 157,
10 Dutt, Vol II, p. 158.
y A table given by Dutt, {Vol II, p. 162} shows that the value of
food grains exported in 1849 was £858,691, and that this figure rose
INDIAN RENAISSANCE 1 93
to £3,790,374 by 1858. By the end of the century it had reached
twelve millions sterling per annum (Dutt, Vol II, p. 163).
12 Commons’ Fourth Report, 1853. Evidence of Mr. J. W. B. Dykes.
" Dutt, Vol II, p. 402. During this period the import of cotton goods
continued to rise steadily, from a value of £8,088,927 in 1859 to
£16,450,212 in 1876.
14 Quoted by Dutt (Vot II, p. 404) from a Resolution of the Indian
Government dated August 12th, 1875.
lf The Indian cotton is of the short staple variety, so that a tax on
long staple cotton (similar to that used by Lancashire mills) was intended
to hamper the Indian industry in competition with British goods in
so far as such competition was possible in finer fabrics.
IB See Dutt, Vol II, pp. 404-407. This extensive agitation in England
regarding a tax of only 5 per cent (largely offset by a tax on raw cotton
which almost equalised the situation) is extremely interesting. When
in 1930 Indian opinion objected to a 5 per cent preference for Britisli
goods, English people expressed surprise that so small a matter as 5 pci
cent should worry them!
15 Resolution of July 1 ith, 1877. (Quoted by Dutt, Vol II, p. 410).
18 Lord Salisbury’s letter to the Governor-General (Lord Lyttori)
dated August 30th, 1877.
19 Resolution of the Board of Directors, March 27th, 187O.
20 Quoted by Dutt (Vol II, pp. 412-13) from a Minute of the Council
dated March 13th, 1879. Dutt also quotes the evidence of Mr. Rivers
Thompson, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, which is
similar in substance.
21 Seventeen years later, (according to papers presented to Parlia ■
ment relating to the Indian Tariff Act and Cotton Duties Act of 1896)
a Mr. Playfair, who represented the European mercantile community
of Calcutta on the Governor-General’s Council, expressed sentiment !
which bear out Sir Alexander’s contention. “Because Lancashire
masters,” he said, “may be alarmed and discontented on account of
the state of their affairs, I see no reason why they should unjustly attai k
a separate industry in India.” (Sec Dutt, Vol II, p. 54*0
22 Dutt, Vol II, p, 538, The Tariff and Excise Duty were both fixed
at 5 per cent, the latter to apply only to the finer counts.
23 Dutt, Vol II, p. 539. It should be noted that India at this time
imported annually over £20,000, ooo’s worth of cotton fabrics and yams,
almost entirely from Great Britain.
** After the fall of the Liberal Government.
2S Despatch of September 5th, 1895. The “pledges” referred to were
Conservative Party pledges to Lancashire.
28 Cotton Duties Act and Tariff Act of 1896. These Acts were
passed despite strong opposition on the Governor-General’s Counci .
Among other opponents Mr. Stevens (later Sir Charles Stevens) referred
to the “suspicion” that the Acts were occasioned “by the exigencies
of party politics in England rather than by the wants of India.”
27 This statement occurs in the annual official report of the Indian
Government, which used to be known by the petitio principii title “The
THE
WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
'94
Moral and Material Progress of India.” (1921, page 144). Compare
note 8 in this chapter.
28 Land and Labour in a D ere an Village, by Dr. Harold Mann, formerly
Director of Agriculture, Bombay Presidency. London and Bombay,
[917 (Vol I) and 1921 (Vol II).
29 Walter Frewen Lord in the English Magazine, November, 1889.
"Here is an unearned increment large enough to turn Mr. Ilcnry
George’s hair white,” is his facetious comment on the growth of
Bombay.
30 India : A Bird's Eye View , by Lord Ronaldshay. He refers to the
fact, examined further in the previous chapter, that India possessed
“a highly-developed system of local self government,” and shows
how, side by side with village assemblies, “which seem to have exercised
judicial and municipal powers,” the castes grew up “with authority
which was not derived from, but which compelled the recognition of,
the central government.”
See also the Oxford History of India, pp. 34-43, for the origin of these
guilds.
31 The power of the priests in Ireland and of Evangelical religion in
South Wales are among the numerous parallels which can be found for
this phenomenon.
82 See Chapter XIII.
33 The bigger posts were, of course, in the words of Rear-Admiral
Campbell “the ambition of the brilliant scholars of Oxford and
Cambridge, as a career for the youth of this country.” (Eke Times ,
April 30th, 1932.)
34 This statement has, of course, its exceptions. Dr. Lala Hardayal
lias accurately, but somewhat unfairly, criticised the prophets of
India’s “av^akening," whose energies were devoted to enabling “more
Indians to ruin their country by joining an aristocratic service which
holds itself aloof from the masses.” ( Modern Review, Calcutta,
February, 1928.)
ss The Indian Services have always been, as John Bright said of the
Foreign Office, “an out-door-relief department” for the British upper
classes. Sir John Strachey held that “not the least important part of
the competitive examination of the young Englishman was passed for
him by his forefathers.” (India: Its Administration and Progress, p. 544.)
34 Evidence before the Royal Commission on Expenditure (1895-7).
Quoted by Dutt, (Vol II, pp. 572-4). Since Gokhale’s time, and thanks
to the necessity for placating influential classes in India, there lias been
some increase in the proportion of Indians employed in the higher ranks
of the services. The effect of such concessions, unaccompanied by a
fundamental change in the nature and direction of the Government
itself, has been the creation of a horde of sycophants who vie with their
British masters in their devotion to anti-Indian interests. The universal
contempt for Indians in the Services, from the highest officials down to
the police, is one of the most striking facts in modern India and indicates
how far nationalism has developed since the time of Gokhale.
32 Wilfred Scawen Blunt in My Diaries (pp. 633-5 * n di e ’SS 2 Edition),
recalls his disappointment with Gokhale and with Lajpat Rai, whose
name later became well-known among the nationalist leaders of India.
INDIAN RENAISSANC E
'95
“He is clearly no leader of a revolution, and they will effect nothing
without one,” Blunt wrote of Gokhale in 1908. “If he represents any-
thing that can be called extreme, there is small chance for India
Or Lajpat Rai Blunt said “I frightened him when I asked him what
chance there was of the native army taking the National side. ? !u J\
could not see on what grounds Morley had arrested Lajpat Rat and
deported him "without trial as a danger to India.
38 It is interesting that many English Liberals, including ex-officials
of the Indian Government, helped to build up the Congress in its early
days. These included Mr. A. O. Hume, formerly Home Secretary
of the Government. The contrast between pre-war and post-war
nationalism is dear when this state of affairs is compared with the
non-co-operation movement of 1921-22. This was tndicae
Lt.-Col. W. G. Hamilton, late Inspector-General of Prisons in Beng .
“Thousands of prisoners,” he said, “ were admitted to the Bengal jails
who were mostly coolies and mill hands.” It is also interesting o
note that the Colonel thought it “absurd” that “these people should
claim to be treated as political prisoners. (Journal of the Last India
Association, July, i 93 0< )
38 My Diaries, by W. S. Blunt, pp. 667, 673, 691 (Edition of 1932}.
Blunt records the stoical courage of the Indian assassin, Dingra, through-
out his trial by a court whose legality he openly repudiated.
4* it is interesting to note that, according to Blunt, Lloyd George
expressed to Churchill “his highest admiration of Dingra’s attitude
as a patriot, in which he (Churchill) shared.
41 To this period belongs the first hartal (a general strike, accompanied
by the closing of all shops, etc.). It took place in Benares as a protest
against a house-tax, and was effective in causing its repeal.
42 Blunt’s Diaries , pp. 618, Get. Blunt also notes on Feb. 20th, 1908,
that “Morley lias begun a new war in India against the Afncli 3 , un ei
the direction of Kitchener, whom in 1889 he attacked for his brutalities
of warfare in the Soudan. Now he finds it all right and proper
Compare the record of the Labour Party, examined in Chapter XV.
43 “Mor ley’s much expected Indian reform speech has at last been
made in the House of Lords, amid much Tory applause,” wrote Blunt
on Dec. 1 8th, 1908.
44 Sec Blunt’s Diaries, pp. 640, 641, 646, 697. The Government, says
Blunt, “telegraphed the headings of Morley’s speech in a more favout-
able sense than the reality (a common Government trick) just as the
Moderate Congress began its sittings, thus getting declarations of a
‘loyal’ character, which, as the Extremist Congress had been forbidden
to meet, has been accepted as the unanimous voice of educated India.
(The Congress was at that time split into Left and Right factions.)
Blunt considered that the Reforms left India “in a worse position than
when Lord Morley came into office.”
48 Quoted by Sir Valentine Ghirol in India, p. 85.
44 Sec The Indian Ferment, by Horace Alexander (London, 1929)
np. 187-8. Evidence on this subject is, in the nature of the case, very
difficult to confirm; but the present author heard very similar accounts
in India. Mr. Alexander adds: “ I have English authority for the belter
that much of the ‘voluntary’ recruitment, especially in Northern India,
o
T HE Will TE SAHIBS IN INDIA
I 96
' vas ^ uc to pressure*” Much evidence on this subject was published
II the Congress Report on the Punjab Atrocities of 1919 and unofficial
1 inscription in Egypt has definitely been proved*
4j As distinct from the Syrian Christians of Southern India* Any
rrncralisations here regarding Indian Christians refer only to the
- (inverts, who, for mainly economic reasons, cluster round the mission
centres*
ls Leaves from the Jungle, by Vender Elwin, (London, 1936), p. 72*
40 See Cambridge Shorter History of India ? pp, 896-8*
& ° British policy with regard to Turkey had for some time disturbed
I nd ian Moslems, ns Blunt shows in his Diaries . The Aga Khan was used
I'v the British Government to counteract the Khilafat agitation, and in
jecognition of his loyal services at that time he was later granted the
status of first-class chief with a salute of eleven guns.
s 1 Headlong ineptitude” is Mr* H. II* Dodwelfs description of this
Wilsonian doctrine. ( Cambridge Shorter History of India y p* 898*) It must
indeed have caused more shudders in Delhi than ever it did in Berlin*
It would be dilh cult to find any legislation in Nazi Germany or
fascist Italy to compare with this detailed denial of every accepted
principle of justice* 1 he provisions of the Rowlatt Acts show the closest
’ imilarity to the proceedings of the Court of Star Chamber, regarded
in seventeenth century England as the epitome of tyranny,
63 Shortly before the massacre at Jalianwala Eagh soldiers had fired
<>n a peaceful procession, killing some twenty persons. This resulted in
1 reprisals in which some Englishmen were killed and considerable damage
was done to property* These reprisals were made the excuse for the
events which followed*
64 rhe Hunter Commission was appointed largely because of the
investigations already in process by a National Congress Committee,
and the necessity for issuing an official statement to counteract the
effect of the findings of this independent enquiry. Actually the Hunter
Report, though its findings were sufficiently damning, has always been
regarded in India as “whitewash,” The three Indian members of the
Hunter Commission were compelled to issue a Minority Report, dis-
sociating themselves from the British majority. The Congress Report,
issued after that of the Hunter Commission, criticised its findings with
devastating arguments based upon a mass of evidence which the
Government Commissioners had conveniently neglected*
Government Report on Disturbances in the Punjab, p. 114,
I he Congress estimate of the killed and wounded was about three times
the Government figure in each category.
Dyer admitted in evidence that he could have dispersed the crowd
without firing. But, lie said, they “would have come back and laughed
at him,"
1 his event and those that followed are entered In the diary of
events in the Daily Mail “Blue Iiook M on India as follows: “ 1919*
Amritsar Riots. Many Europeans murdered,”
*Mn this street a lady missionary had been assaulted by a mob;
the crawling order” was Dyer's scheme for punishing anyone with a
brown skin for the crime of her unknown assailants* The official report,
while admitting the existence of this order, did not make it clear that
INDIAN REMAINS AN C E
197
Indians especially leading men in politics or public life— were dragged
from all over the town to glut the sadism of those who invented tto
loathsome method of vengeance. The people were also compelled to
“salaam” to every British soldier they met while other refinements of
degradation were enforced by the whip and the bullet.
SO Major CarlHiry, questioned by the Hunter Commission regarding
the bombing of villages by aeroplanes, replied: “ « todota
in their own interests.” (Hunter Report, p. I 33 -) lh ? Hl § h ■ , *
Khalsa was one of the places bombed with this humanitarian intention.
so Terrorism was not confined to the Punjab. It was also officially
admitted that fourteen persons were killed and sixty wounded at Delhi
Whilst at Ahmcdabad twenty-eight were killed and 123 wounded in
each case by firing on Indian demonstrations which clashed with the
military forces. . ih , fi
5 1 The Case for India , by John S. Hoyland (London, 1929). pp. * 7 - iy -
“In one city at least," writes Mr. Hoyland “banners were hung out of
windows bearing the words ‘Remember the Punjab. There was
general feeling that happenings at Amritsar rendered rejoicings ov ^
the defeat of Prussianism in the War, to say the least of it, inopportune.
50 u is noteworthy that even the mild “punishment” of General
Dyer was condemned by a resolution in the Home of Lords, wh
f lo 000 was raised for him by public subscription in honour of his
heroic conduct at Jalianwala Bagh and his enforcement of the Crawling
Order.
63 Mr. Palme Dutt in his book Modern India (London, 1926), quotes
Sir Michael as having spoken to the Society of Authors of our duty to
our imperial position, to our kinsfolk in India and to the thousand
millions of British capital invested in India ” The Amritsar massacre
was no doubt the fulfilment of this duty.
• 4 According to Miss Beauchamp, who is by no means favourable
to the Congress, its registered membership by 1921 had reached
10000,000 {British Imperialism in India, p. 176). She asserts that its
nation-wide propaganda organisation” was “sweeping Indians of alt
classes— peasants, petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals and workers 1
Congress activities.” As the adherents of a party, even in a hig y
organised community, commonly number at cast ten to every one
party member, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the ^ ^ongres
had 'by 1921 at least 100,000,000 supporters, the rest of the P e< ?P
(apart from Indian princes, landlords, officials, etc.) b«ng mmny
apathetic through ignorance. Actual membership of the Congress
is naturally restricted in India among the masses by he fact that it
exposes the individual to considerable risks, especially in. times of
political disturbance, when he may be victimised by the police.
^ India and the World . Essays byjawaharlal Nehru (London 1936),
np. 172-6. The whole of this short essay on Gandhi should be read
carefully by every serious student of Indian problems.
Many writers, both imperialist and communist, seem to assume that
Gandhi is the conscious tool of Indian capitalism; though precisely
what he lias to gain has never been made clear. Miss Beauchamp m
British Imperialism in India , even finds fault with the poor man for failing
to protest against the Meerut sentences at a time when he was in jail
and therefore debarred from political activity.
TIIE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
I()fi
® f “Gandhi,” writes Nehru, “has played a revolutionary role in
India of the greatest importance because he knew how to make the most
of the objective conditions and could reach the hearts of the masses.”
A more idealistic view of Gandhi is given bv Remain Roll and in his
hook Mahatma Gandhi ; hut M. Rolland would probably agree to-day
with Nehru’s more judicious assessment of his importance.
* 7 Nehru develops this idea further by comparing the alignment of
Purees in the Congress with the “Popular Fronts” of contemporary
Europe. This question will be examined further in our final chapter.
* s In order not to fill up these pages unnecessarily with “atrocities”
ant! details of repression, no account is given here of the Government’s
measures in 1921-2; they were similar to the general scheme of repres-
sion adopted in 1930. (Sec Chapter XV.)
E " Civil disobedience was to have begun with a refusal of the land
tax. started locally in Bardoli. Gandhi has often been censured for
stopping the civil disobedience movement in 1922; and probably from
most standpoints he was mistaken. It is, however, hardly fair criticism
lo blame Gandhi for the various checks to this movement and give him
no credit for having started it. Manifestly no single individual could
have exercised such power in checking such a vast movement had not
1 be movement itself owed its existence very largely (as is almost univer-
sally acknowledged) to Jus personal inspiration.
70 It was to this constitution that the National Joint Council of the
I , a hour Party and the Trade Union Congress referred when they
refused to champion the Indian masses in 1922 and advised them to apply
to those “Parliamentary institutions recently conferred on India, by
means of which grievances should be ventilated anti wrongs redressed.”
71 In two of these Provincial Councils Englishmen were appointed
by the Government to “represent” Labour. Madras, Burma and the
tl.P. had no Labour representatives at all.
75 The departments placed under the control of the Provincial
( louncils were Local Government, Sanitation. Agriculture, Fisheries,
Co-operation and Industries. Education, apait from certain specified
schools and universities, was also placed under Council control, the
necessary money for education being made dependent on the Excise,
which was also transferred to the control of the Councils. The Councils
were thus placed in the ambiguous position of having to raise the necessary
funds for their schools from a liquor traffic which they wanted to abolish.
1 3 This is still the case under the new Constitution. (Sec Chapter XV 7 .)
( Considering their limitations, it must be admitted that these Indian
legislatures have done credit to themselves. l)r. V. Ii. Rutherford in
Modem India (London, 1927) noted the superiority of the Indian
politicians to the British ministers in every particular. (See pp. O2-84.)
71 The only important innovation under the Labour Government of
1924 was the promulgation of the Bengal Ordinance. Like the Rowlatt
Acts and similar special measures adopted in 1930 and 1932, this
( )rdi nance permitted arrest without warrant and indefinite detention
without trial. A Bill to embody this Ordinance in the permanent
laws of the Province was introduced into the Bengal Legislative Council
(in March 1925) where it was rejected.
An India Office communique of October 27th, 1924, stated that the
Viceroy had promulgated the Bengal Ordinance “with the authority
INUI A N RENAISSANCE
of His Majesty’s Government” (i.e., the Labour Government) and
The Times of October 27th, 1924, reported that fifty-six arrests had been
made almost immediately, after extensive house searches.
75 Documents concerning the Origin and Purpose of the Indian Statutory
Commission . {Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace. March, 1930, p. 183,)
7. These were “Our Right Trusty and Well-Beloved Counsellor,
Stephen Walsh” and “Our Trusty and Well-Beloved Clement Richard
Attlee Esquire." The Trusty and Well-Beloved Walsh being ill, his
place was taken by the Right Honourable Vernon Hartshorn.
77 The history of the Bardoli tax-strike is told by Mr. Mahadev Desai
in The Story of Bardoli (Ahmcdabad, 1929), which is a complete an
well -documented account. When the Government seized the movable
property of the peasants and tried to sell it, the auctions were boycotted.
Attempts to sell land were even more unsuccessful, for only people
from a distance (mainly Government employees) would buy the land;
! I 1 ft 1 1 . 1 I ^ mm # n n A1" A1 1 1 fl t"l V
and when they did so no labourer would
78 The Indian Ferment , p. m.
t* The recommendations of the Simon Commission are not dealt
with here, as they proved to be $0 reactionary that even the Government
had to go considerably beyond them in order to make terms with t e
Indian propertied classes.
80 The negotiations of the Congress leaders and others with the
Viceroy were considered by the present author in the Political Quarterly
(April, 1930). The actual history of subsequent events is, however, the
best commentary on the Government’s terms as expressed throug
Lord Irwin* Mr. MacDonald, in a letter to Mr. Baldwin dated Novem-
ber nth, 1929, staled that “the answer to both parts of the question,
whether the Viceroy’s declaration implies any change m the policy
hitherto declared or in the time when this status may be attained, is
‘No’.” (Daily Ilcrafd , November 12th, 1929.) Further comments and
facts will be found in Chapter XV. _ ,
81 Congress was at this time dominated by a powerful combination
consisting of Gandhi and the two Nehrus (“the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost,” as their enemies styled them). For a good evaluation o .
nationalism in the ’twenties see Alexander’s comparison in The Indian
Ferment (p. 201).
87 Sec In India , by G. W. Stccvens (London, 1889), pp. 3 2 4 > 3 2 5 > 3 2 9 -
It should be noted I Hat the peasant requires salt for Ins cattle as we l
as for himself; and the cost of it, though small to European eyes, is an
important item in an Indian peasant’s budget. It is also generally
considered that (owing to difference in diet) the poor consume more
salt per head than the wealthier people. For comparison it may dc
remembered that in the French Revolution the salt tax was by popular
demand among the first to be abolished. Scawen Blunt gives further
information on the* Indian salt tax in his India Under Rip° n - In the
nineteenth century corporal punishment was inflicted in Madras lor
the procurement of salt other than that manufactured by the Govern-
ment. (See Dutt, Vol II, p- I 5 1 *)
8:1 Sec Chapter XV.
CHAPTER X
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES
I
On September 13th, 1932, the world was informed that
Mr. M. K. Gandhi, a prisoner detained in Yerawda Jail
during His Majesty s pleasure, had been communicating
with the British Government for several months regarding
an . ultimatum unprecedented in the history of politics*
which he had issued to them,
Plie ultimatum concerned the question of separate elector-
ates for the “Depressed Classes” of India. The “threat”
by which the Indian leader sought to bend the will of the
British Government was simply that unless the schemes
lor such separate electorates were abandoned he would
starve himself to death.
Untouchability ” is one of the worst evils of Hinduism:
in Gandhis own words it is “a corroding poison that is
eating into the vitals of Hindu society.” Like most social
institutions it had its origin in something that was at one
time progressive. The Aryan conquerors of India had, and
still preserve to a large degree, in spite of their poverty,
«i civilisation that placed the highest emphasis upon personal
cleanliness. 1 They found and subdued earlier races whose
< utilisation was less advanced. Like the while races in
Africa, they were desperately anxious to preserve their own
civilisation and race purity” among those whom they
regarded as their inferiors. Like the white races in Africa,
or the white Americans in their relations with the Negro,
these Aryans became arrogant and cruel as a result. They
thought of these untouchables” (as they became) much in
the way that a white planter thinks of a “nigger.” 2 Marriage
01 even social contact became unthinkable. If they avoided
excesses equivalent to lynching, they made up for their
moderation in that direction by a refinement of spiritual
200
201
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES
torture. “Untouchability” became part of their religion,
and in this they even in some respects excelled the Negro-
phobia of the white man. The ban on Negroes in white
churches is not a universal or officially recognised part oi
the Christian religion; but “untouchability” was rigid y
adhered to by the Brahmin priests, and no Untouchable
was allowed in a Hindu temple. . . ,
The number of these “ Untouchables ” in India is variously
estimated, being between 40 and 60 millions, out of a total
population of about 350 millions . 2 Any exact estimate is
impossible, owing to the variation in actual practice, the
south of India being on the whole far more rigid in its
adherence to the rules of caste. We must, of course, remem-
ber that a Christian or a Moslem is also an “Untouchable
from the Hindu point of view, since neither observes what
Hindu law considers the rules of personal hygiene. For this
reason any Hindu who leaves his country and lives abroad
must necessarily break caste ‘-as Gandhi himself did when
lie came as a young man to study law in London. Froba y
the much larger proportion of Mohammedans m the Nor
of India has accustomed Hindus in the more northerly
provinces to a loosening of caste restrictions, just as it has
led on the other hand, to the system of purdah (veiling and
seclusion of women) which many Hindus in the North have
borrowed from the Moslems.
Every effort having been made in this country to represen
Gandhi as the champion of Brahminism and the opponent
of the Depressed Classes, we may begin by noting the views
of two Englishmen, of whom one is a definite opponent ot
Gandhi’s political views and the other a missionary and a
political “moderate.”
The first quotation is from a letter written by Dr. Westcot ,
Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India. Whilst
condemning the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Bishop
spoke of himself as
“One who has known the Mahatma for some years
and who deeply appreciated the service he was rendering
for the social uplift of the Depressed Classes and for racial
unity in India. As a social reformer he had my whole-
hearted support. . . . ” 5
( ) 2
' r 1 1 E whit !■; s a if r u s in indi a
I lie second quotation is from the pen of the Rev. R. M.
(h-ay, a former missionary, who knows Gandhi and India
horn personal experience. Writing in Social Service fi Mr.
Gray said:
<l Mr. Gandhi deserves the name of Mahatma if for
no otliei reason than that lie lias taken upon his heart
I lie misery of the outcastes. . . . From his boyhood this
lias seemed to Mr. Gandhi an intolerable wrong, lie
rails it the open sore of India, the scandal of her social
, . ; At a meeting gathered to hear him speak
Jie noticed that the outcastes were put in an inferior
place by themselves. At once he rose up, took his place
among them, and, sitting there, gave his address. He
never wearies of urging his countrymen by pen and speech
in put away this curse. He has brought upon himself
the anger of the orthodox, but he cares not for that.
* • •_ And there is no doubt that he has stirred the
conscience of India.”
^ cars ago Gandhi gave up an income of about £3,000
a year in order to live among his poor countrymen in South
Africa, and help them in their difficulties. He teaches work,
and works himself continually. He believes in simplicity*
and has renounced all luxuries. Therefore, as his own
ashram (or religious and social settlement) at Sabarmati
was intended as a training ground for his followers, “Un-
touchables ” came to live there as members of his little
community;
When these “Untouchables” first came to the ashram
(here was much opposition from the orthodox, and Gandhi
ias told the story in his autobiography. 7 He tells how he
bad difficulty with a neighbour who partly controlled the
well from which the water for the ashram was drawn, and
how the man in charge of the water-lift was violent and
abusive. This opposition was worn clown by Gandhi’s
non-violent resistance— or “persistence” would perhaps be a
better term— and finally “the man became ashamed and
ceased to bother us.”
But the wealthy, orthodox Hindus refused to give support
to such a blasphemous institution, and serious financial
difficulties arose, accompanied by the threat of a social
THE depressed classes 203
boycott. When Gandhi’s nephew Maganlal came to him
one day and said: “We arc out of funds, and there is nothing
for the next month,” Gandhi told him that in that case
they would go to the “Untouchables’” quarter, where they
could live by manual labour. Then financial help came
unexpectedly, and the ashram was able to continue its work.
In the years that followed Gandhi adopted an Untouch-
able” daughter, who grew up in the ashram as a symbol of
the unity that Gandhi was trying to bring about.
The stress that Gandhi himself lays on this personal
aspect of his work may seem strange to an Englishman.
Its importance in a country like India cannot possibly be
ovcr-cstimatccl. Within a few years his personal influence
and example swung the National Movement over from a
constitutional to a (politically) revolutionary programme,
though the methods he advocated were unexampled in the
history of revolutions. From being to a very large extent
a group of unemployed intellectuals, who concerned them-
selves with “ the Indiamsation of the Services the All-
India National Congress became a mass movement
concerned with the achievement of power by the Indian
people. Its members resigned Government offices and
refused privileges. The turning-point in this vital trans-
formation of the movement was reached at the annual
meeting of the Congress at Nagpur in 1920, when the leading
political organisation of India followed Gandhi’s lead and
declared war on “Untouchability.” But for this, the various
Civil Disobedience Movements in the form which they took could
never have taken place , and India would still be relegated to
the bored discussions of a half-empty House of Commons
for one evening in the year. 3
In March, 1931, the Congress amplified its social policy
in a Declaration of Rights, drawn up by Jawaharlal Nehru,
the Socialist leader, in conjunction with Gandhi, as the basis
of any constitution to which Congress would agree. This
declaration included adult suffrage, free primary education,
and statutory rights for the Depressed Classes on every point
with regard to which they have suffered from disabilities.
Few men have realised as Gandhi has done the dual process
that is necessary in a mass peasant movement. Social
THE W HITE S A II I B S IN INDIA
2 04
reform will always be inadequate and largely impossible
while political power remains in the hands of an autocratic
and unsympathetic Government. But on the other hand,
no mass movement can gather force sufficient to dislodge
such a Government unless it is sclf-critical and sclf-dis-
ciplined. Gandhi’s social programme has therefore a value
in itself and a political value also. It claims to be the
maximum that can be achieved by the Indian people
for themselves short of the control of their own political
and economic life, and within, the limits of nationalist
ideology this claim is probably true. This social programme
is not intended as an alternative to political freedom and
economic justice, but as a measure of self-discipline by which
the Indian labourers and peasants will be better able to
grapple with their greater problem; and it is intended to
go on side by side with the struggle for political power.
The five main points in Gandhi's social programme are:
1. Hindu-Moslem unity and brotherhood.
2. Abolition of “ Untouchability.”
3. Abolition of purdah and the recognition of sex equality.
4. Abstinence from drink and drugs. 9
5. Revival of the peasant crafts of hand-spinning and
hand-weaving as supplementary industries alleviating the
chronic and almost universal unemployment among the
peasants during the summer months. 1 0
The last point could be explained in much greater detail
than is possible within the scope of this chapter. It is the
origin of the Khadi or Khaddar Movement so little understood
in England. It is hard for us to understand the relative
values of tilings in a country where the average income
per caput is about 3^d. a day; for poverty as we know it in
England bears no relation to the poverty of India. The
poor of India are almost literally skeletons, and it is these,
including the greater number of the “Untouchables,”
that the Khaddar Movement claims to assist.
This social programme has been advocated by Gandhi
and his followers all over India, by precept and example.
They go from village to village, preaching their gospel
and founding schools and other centres, especially for the
THE DEPRESSED GLASSES
205
Depressed Classes. Even the Marquis of Dufferm seems
to have got a glimpse of this on his tour with
Committee, which in the nature of th.ngs had little chance
to learn very much, as it was boycotted by most people m
India except the handful of Government su PP° r , '
Marquis tells of his visits to various villages with the C
mission, and of their reception. In one ol these villages, he
says : 1 1
“We tested out the proposed system of indirect election,
by getting about twenty villagers together and a sk g
them to elect a representative. To our surprise a Dorn
a complete ‘Untouchable, was elected W her i ashe
whv an old Brahmin replied sententiously that A Dom
serves all, and is therefore to be honoured. We learnt
been it work in this district in preparation for our arrival.
But the incident is interesting as showing how power-
fully propaganda can affect the village life, and how the
left-wing of Congress is drifting towards the doctrines of
Communism.”
The only comment necessary is on the words that have
been italicised. Those who know the work that the All-India
National Congress has been doing Tor years among the
villagers will he amazed at the assumption of the Commute
that diis propaganda was "in preparation for their tirrrvah
The conceit of this supposition is no less remarkable
the ignorance it implies; for the Congress policy was to
boycott the Committee, and the only strange t ung ln
story is that a village so well-educated by Congress workers
should have responded to the Committee s questions at all.
A cartoon from one of the leading nationalist papers in
iqg 2 illustrates aptly the spirit of the age m India,
appeared ill the Free Press Journal 13 and depicts a steam-
roller labelled “Social Reform” moving along the road
that leads to “National Unity.” Right in the path of
the steam-roller squats "Orthodoxy,” a fat and repulsive
Brahmin priest, to whom “Progressive Hinduism (a
Khaddar-dzd figure in a “Gandhi cap”) is saying. He
won’t stop anyway. If you persist you 11 simply get run
over.” 14 1
T H E WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
2oG
To understand the whole problem w f c must next examine
briefly the attitude of the Government towards the Depressed
Classes. So much has been made in England and other
countries of the alleged danger to the Depressed Glasses
in India ol Brahmin rule,” that few pause to consider
v hether and in what way the present Government protects
these classes.
Those who have examined closely the relationship between
the Government and the Indian princes may well wonder
how the power which protects these autocrats from rebellion
and has earned from them such unqualified admiration
and loyalty can at the same time be the protector of the
poor and oppressed . 15 The Indian “ loyalists ” (who formed
the gi cat majority of those nominated by the Viceroy to
attend the Round Table Conference) will be found to
.consist almost entirely of rajas and their immediate retainers,
landlords, Indians in Government service, and a certain
section of the commercial and industrial community.
These classes, whatever small concessions they may demand,
have stood solidly for British rule in one form or another.
This point is important, because behind this loyalty
there is a reason, and the only obvious reason is that the
Government stands in all social matters for “non-inter-
vention” and the maintenance of the status quo . 16 The
changes that the Nationalists contemplate are disturbing
to the propertied and privileged classes in India; and with
the exception of some of the mill-owners (whose interests
aic more complicated) the upper classes become increasingly
loyal as the Congress becomes increasingly revolutionary
in its social outlook. Individuals in the Government and
in the services may genuinely wish for reforms; but they
dare not offend their only Indian supporters and give
strength to a social revolution that would engulf both
themselves and their allies. Theirs is the fate of every alien
and despotic Government, which is so much concerned
with maintaining its authority that the maintenance of
that authority ( law and order”) becomes its chief object;
consequently social changes arc looked at witli suspicion
as possible sources of disruption. What the Nationalist
Movement cannot achieve for lack of political power the
t 1 1 v.
D V. V R V, S S F. D C LASS L S
207
Government dare not attempt for fear of political up-
heaval . 17 The long opposition of the Government to the
Sarda Act (urged and eventually passed in die Legislative
Assembly by the Indian Social Reformers to prohibit child
marriage) is a well-known instance of this.
Mr. J. G. Gurry’s book 011 The Indian Police illustrates this
point strikingly with reference to the Depressed Classes.
The book is written by a former member of the Service
and carries the hall-mark of imperial approval — an appre-
ciative preface by Lord Lloyd. In several passages Mr.
Gurry stresses the fact that the police force itself is built
up on the caste system, claiming that this encouragement
and utilisation of a system we profess to abhor “has secured
a standard of efficiency which would have been unattain-
able in any other way.” is On the same page he admits
that “men of the menial classes have been debarred fiom
enlisting as constables or as combatants in the Indian
Army,” adding a little later that “the same conditions
have had the same consequences in all the Services,, in
the Army, in the magistracy, and even in the technical
services, where professional qualifications must be rein-
forced by social standing.”
Mr. Gurry insists on this point in several passages, icmar
ing in one place that the authorities
“have suggested that when Hindu opinion generally
has no objection to a man of high caste being touc le
or to his bouse being searched by such a man (i-c-, an
‘Untouchable’), there will be no difficulty in the way
of their employment .” 19
It docs not seem to have occurred to Mr. Curry that
in India house-searching to-day is a common Government
practice to which Hindu opinion has a very groat objection
indeed, even though it is carried out by policemen of
irreproachable social standing.
In the education of the Depressed Classes the Govern-
ment has shown very little initiative. The Indian States
(ruled by autocratic princes who enjoy the support of the
British Army against any attempt to remove them) ate no
models of good government, and must never be considered
2o3 the white sahibs in india
as examples of that Swaraj (self-government) of which
Gandhi said: “Swaraj does not mean a transfer of power
from a white bureaucracy to a brown bureaucracy.” Never-
theless, the advances in education made in some of these
States indicate what could have been done in British India;
and Baroda State showed till recently a higher percentage
of educated “Untouchables” than the educated percentage
of the total population of the entire country. 20
In the constitutional reforms the same attitude is to be
found. The Montagu- Chelmsford Constitution gave limited
powers to Indian Councils and an Indian Legislative
Assembly, but these bodies were elected on a property
franchise which gave the vote only to 3 per cent of the
population. In these councils and in the Assembly the
“Untouchables” were entirely unrepresented, save for two
•or three members nominated by the Government itself who
would have formed a helpless and negligible minority
among all the landlords, British and Indian capitalists,
Government nominees, etc., even if they had been real
representatives. With these legislative bodies Gandhi
always refused co-operation.
When the Government’s attitude to the “Untouchables”
is compared with that of Gandhi and the Congress, it is
easy to understand where the political sympathies of these
classes lie. 21
In recent years desperate efforts have been made by the
Government to counter the effect of this contrast by extend-
ing its favour towards distinguished individuals who have
“risen ” from the ranks of the Depressed Classes; and societies
(with a few hundred members) have been formed under
the leadership of persons nominated by the Government
to the legislatures, 22
These societies commonly bear such pretentious titles
that their resolutions and decisions are apt to be quite
misunderstood in England, yet they are solemnly cabled
to this country as evidence of the loyalty of the “Untouch-
ables” to the Government. A single example will suffice
to illustrate this fact.
When Gandhi marched to the sea in 1930 in order to
break the salt law, few English people knew that thousands
209
THE depressed CLASSES
sal all night by ihe roadside (a fact; for ^hfcrowdLhich
author can vouch personally) and * was eenerally
lined the road for the first three miles alonL f „
estimated at about 100,000.- But most Enghd
published an account of a ‘ counter-, a yagi • (a an dhi
to be made by ‘'the Untouchables” against^ Gandhu
given much publicity by the ^-Government ^
that ever came of it was a visit to Gandhi at - <
two men ivho had proposed it. , been
Instead, the Depressed Classes, wherever the, ' had bee
roused by Gandhi's workers from the
and social degradation, came into the slrugg
their part in it. They did not work side by side w tl the
high-caste Hindus under a separate organisation, as so
of the Moslems did. The Congress programme for the
“ Untouchables ” has always been one of merging
the rest of the Hindu community. The distinc 1011
Hindu and Moslem can be recognised and accepted , g
in politics it may prove extremely undestrable M '.m
distinction between caste and out-caste cannot unier any
be recognised as valid by any sincere social r^r-a tact wmen
wc must grasp clearly in order to understan
separate electorates. , .
This merging of the “Untouchables wi 1 int
Hindus in liic national struggle makes n differ 1 ,
to any distinctive and separate exploits o P
Classes during the Civil Disobedience Movement ^
becomes a question of weighing up general impressionsa,
those recorded by “partisan” writers on cither slde
he compared wi th tl.e statement made by an Engl
bank manager 2 ’ in Bombay that “Hmdu.s , . « Gt^cr*,
from Gandhi down to the meanest member of the Depress
Classes, arc solid in their demand.” Impartial o serve
i oao reported the same impression from all partsof the J-
9 Even in the British Press, where every effort has been
made to represent the national movement as t ic wor
handful of lawyers and students, the social character an
mass support of the movement have occasionally evad
the vigilance of the editors. Thus a paragrap in.
2 I O
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Evening Mews 25 informed us on one occasion that “Police
came into contact with a mob of low-caste natives,” who
were breaking the forest laws in one of the Indian jungles —
a form of civil disobedience advocated by Congress. The
very extent of the Civil Disobedience Movement is spite of
the unparalleled repression is sufficient proof that no large
section of the populace can have held aloof or proved actively
hostile. The crowds, huge beyond description, and held in
perfect discipline by Congress volunteers — the nation-wide
boycott — the entire absence of any effective counter*
demonstration — the small, cheap print's of Gandhi in the
huts of the poorest peasants — these, and innumerable
other evidences can be cited by those who watched the
struggle in 1930 to prove the universal support that Gandhi
had at that time among the masses. 26
. In March, 1931, Gandhi signed a pact with Lord Irwin,
then Viceroy of India, whereby he agreed to persuade
his followers to suspend the Civil Disobedience Campaign
in order that he might come to London and negotiate with
the Government at the Round Table Conference.
The first session of the Conference had already met without
the co-operation of Gandhi and the Congress. The terms
of reference had proved unsatisfactory, and the Govern-
ment’s general policy had not been considered such as to
endorse the bona-fules of its intentions. 27 It had been a
packed Conference of the Viceroy’s nominees, hopelessly
overweighted with the same vested interests that filled the
Legislative Assembly and the Chamber of Princes, together
with chosen “ communalists ” — men who (in the name of
the Moslem masses, the Depressed Classes, and other
minorities, whose rank and file and real leaders were mostly
with the Congress - wrangled about jobs and privileges for
their various cliques.
It is impossible here to discuss in detail the nature and
origin of the interests that crossed one another at that
Conference, in what one of the European delegates himself
described as “a maze of back-stair intrigue.” 28 The question
with which we are concerned at the moment is that of
Gandhi and the Depressed Classes; and it is necessary to con-
centrate attention on what was termed the “Minorities Pact.” '
the depressed glasses 211
This pact was made during ^thc wat
Conference, that is *’ j “delegates” to
present. We must bear m - ‘^^delegates or even
C °" C ’or represented — interest, if
representatives. Lac _ 1 ^ at the Conference
only his own; but Ins rig - Viceroy and barely
,z “ ,1,, i— » <■» ,w
"jrr'rri
stSTStSS S-Vi-. -
xx™ — X £ S’.
'selected by the Viceroy w-^ont good reason^, . Mr _
fcrcnce brought In ia ■ ln ° P h Conference was
were that were put forward. European
Mr. Bcnihall himself, Te ' ^noriues Pact!” to
which great publicity was g.vem ota sj
.1 i- tq f> Anelo-Incuan aelcgaicb,
~ r K r.;Xix“h£
he is to India. Ihe signatory hJs recorc i
was Dr. Ambedkar, whose ch . ,ef ' f? ' ° is , atlve Council of
as a Government nominee in S
Bombay. 31 ccnlt Q f the
The signatories claimed to repic. = 4 p was
Indian people, the greater part ol which pc. cent g
V
212 THE WHITE SAIIIBS IN INDIA
made up of Moslems and the “Untouchables.” The
foolishness of the claim was exposed by the counter-claim
of the women delegates, who, by opposing the pact, con-
cluded logically that 46 per cent was thereby reduced to
23 per cent. Even while the pact was being signed the
North-West Frontier Province, where the Moslems number
over go per cent of the population, was organising under
the greatest ol the Moslem Nationalist leaders, whose arrest
soon afterwards precipitated the renewal of the Congress
Campaign. 3 2
1 lie clauses in the “Minorities Pact” included the assump-
tion of powers of veto in “Governors,” ruling out by
inference any thought of independence. They endorsed
the claims advanced by the Europeans and Anglo-Indians
for the safeguarding of their privileges — that is to say, in
■the greater opportunities offered to them of public offices
(with higher pay) and the privileges they enjoy with regard
to law courts, State scholarships and other matters. 33
And they agreed to accept and champion one another's claims for
separate electorates.
Gandhi’s position at the Conference was clear. Alone of
all the “delegates” he could claim to represent the Indian
masses, and held the mandate of Congress to press the
minimum claim that could bring any real self-government
to the people of India — independence and universal suffrage
without discrimination. On the subject of separate
electorates for the Depressed Classes his reply was clear
and unequivocal. Speaking in answer to Dr. Ambedkar
at the last meeting of the Minorities Committee 34 he said:
“I would not sell the vital interests of the ‘ Untouch-
ables ’ even for the sake of winning the freedom of India.
I claim myself, in my own person, to represent the vast
mass of the 'Untouchables.’ Ilere I speak not merely
on behalf of the Congress, but I speak on my own behalf,
and I claim that I Would get, if there was a referendum
of the ‘Untouchables,’ their vote, and that I would top
the poll. . . . We do not want on our register and on our
census f Untouchables’ classified as a separate class. 3 5 Sikhs
may remain as such in perpetuity, so may Moslems,
so may Europeans. Will ‘Untouchables’ remain ‘Un-
T n £ DEPRESSED CLASSES 21^
touchables ’ in perpetuity? / would rather that Hinduism died
than that Vnlouchabilily hoed. • • • 1 **11 n u ot , b g ^ ,
away their rights for tire kingdom of the whole world.
... I want to say with all the emphasis that I can
command that if I was l!u only person to resist this thing 1
would resist it with my life."
Seldom in his career has Gandhi spoken as forcibly as he
did in resisting what he called the “perpetuation of the bar
sinister” of the “Untouchables.” He knew that separate
electorates must stablise Unreliability as a permanent
factor in Indian life. His own method— of adult suit rage
without discrimination— would have had the effect of com-
pelling any caste Hindu who wished to secure the support
of “Untouchables” in an election to break with all the
traditions of orthodoxy. He stood by it lirmly, rejecting
summarily the offer of the Prime Minister to ar itrate
between the rights of the Depressed Classes and the claims
of the Government’s nominees.
Every effort was made by interested parties to enhance
the effect created at the Round Table Conference— that
Gandhi had opposed the representative of the Depressed
Classes in the interests of the high-caste Hindus. The clash
was so reported by all the British daily papers as to give this
impression; and in India the same effort was made to create
this impression among the “Untouchables’ themselves. ^
In spite of this the great majority o£the “Untouchab les
made it clear that they supported Gandlu. On Gandhi s
return to India a few hundred were persuaded to demon-
strate against him at Bombay; but though the incident
formed the chief news in the British papers, concerning his
arrival, the account given by Verrier Elwin confirms t e
unanimous evidence of Indian witnesses (and the camera)
that this small disturbance was negligible compared with
the colossal and largely spontaneous demonstration ol
welcome with which the Indian masses greeted the national
leader. 3 0 It is at least significant that the Bombay
Government, followed by most of the other provincia
Governments, banned the films that were taken o t is
demonstration. Moreover (according to the Associated Press ,
in a cable that was not published in the English papers) :
214 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
“A deputation of sixty members representing over
forty Depressed Classes associations presented an address
to Mr. Gandhi on his return to Bombay. The address
referred to Mr. Gandhi’s labours for the uplift of
“Untouchables” and his making the removal of Untoucli-
ability a fundamental issue, and hailed him as their only
representative and saviour.”
With very few exceptions, the “Untouchables’” organi-
sations in every part of India repudiated the Minorities
Pact in public meetings, and by large majorities. Within
a few weeks it was clear that the Depressed Classes repudiated
Ainbedkar’s policy and under the leadership of M. G.
Rajah were declaring for joint electorates with reservation
of seats — a policy upon which Mr. Rajah reached agree-
ment with the caste Hindus.
The problem of the Indian Minorities had long been
settled, so far as the Moslems were concerned, in an agree-
ment between Gandhi and the late Dr. Ansari, who (as
leader of the Nationalist Moslems) could speak with
authority for the Moslem masses. February, 1932, saw the
problem of the Depressed Classes dealt with equally well by
Mr. Rajah. But those who were supposed to represent these
minorities at St. James’s Palace took an entirely different
view of the matter, as we have seen; and the Government
that appointed them was able to declare that a complete
deadlock had been created, and that the British Cabinet
would settle a question which Indians were incompetent
to settle.
The “Communal Award,” as this settlement was called,
would require a complete book to itself if it were to be
properly analysed, a fact which renders it the more infamous,
in view of its essentially reactionary character. The papers
of August 17th, 1932, had announced daring and drastic
reforms, with “Plural Voting for the Depressed Classes”;
and the proposals were favourably reviewed in those
journals which the Englishman habitually regards as
progressive. 3 7 But the proposed communal settlement could
only be understood if studied in conjunction with the
Lothian Report. According to this document, which was
actually regarded as “advanced” in British political circles,
TIIE DEPRESSED CLASSES 215
only 14 per cent of India’s population was to be enfranchised
in the Provincial Legislatures . 38 Under the Government’s
“Communal Award,” seventy-one seats in the Provincial
Councils were to be allotted to the enfranchised members of
the Depressed Classes, out of a total of 1,748 seats - 3 ® That
is to say, a section of the community which is estimated
at between 15 per cent and 25 per cent of the population
was to be safeguarded by 4 per cent of the seats being allotted
to its own privileged members. This was what Gandhi
described as “sheer finookcry.”
The vast majority of the Untouchables* far from
enjoying “plural voting,” would have no vote at all. Those
of the Depressed Classes whom the Government considered
“fit” to vote would find the number of seats allotted to their
separate electorates hopelessly exceeded by those of the
propertied classes. An instance of the allocation of seats
that will make this principle understood to British readers
is the distribution as between Capital and Labour in Bengal .
“Commerce, Industry, Mining and Planting” in this
province are allowed nineteen seats— Labour (that is to
say, such workers as the Government thinks fit for the
franchise) is given eight.
Separate electorates as offered in the Communal
Award” would therefore not only have “perpetuated the
bar sinister” for the Depressed Classes, but they would have
proved the very negation of democracy. 40 M. C. Rajah’s
comment, as President of the All-India Depressed Classes
Association, was: “Our cause has been injured beyond
repair by the Minorities Pact.”
The following extracts from the correspondence between
Gandhi and the Government should be noted in illustration
of this point. Mr. MacDonald, in his cable of September
8th, 1932, said: “The proportion of their special seats is
everywhere much below the population percentage of the
Depressed Glasses.” 41 To this Gandhi replied on September
9th:
“I should not be against even over-representation
of ‘Depressed’ Glasses. What I am against is their
statutory separation, even in a limited form, from the
Hindu fold, so long as they choose to belong to it. . . .
THE WHITE S A II I II S IN INDIA
2 1 6
“As your letter may give rise to a misunderstanding,
I wish to state that the fact of my having isolated for
special treatment the ‘ Depressed ’ Classes question from
other parts of your decision docs not in any way mean
that I approve of or am reconciled to the other parts
of the decision. 7 ’
In the British Pi css Gandhi’s Fast was generally repre-
sented as a political manoeuvre against the Depressed
Classes. Thus one writer described it as “Mr. Gandhi’s
attempt to thwart the emancipation of the Untouchables.” 42
Another, with more elaboration, proclaimed that:
“It is, therefore, small wonder that Mr. Gandhi views
a reform that shall make Jack as good as his master as
vitiating the Hindu vision which keeps its slaves in their
place. Moreover, so deep, so spiritual in many ways, is
the abhorrence of the high caste for the low, that we of
the West cannot possibly understand it .” 43
Occasional paragraphs stood out in odd contrast to this.
Thus Miss Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour M.P., cabled the
Daily Herald from Calcutta:
“As delegates of the India League, we have visited
many villages, and the mass of untouchables regard
Gandhi as their only saviour, and separate electorates
as perpetuating their untouchable status .” 44
In the same number of the Daily Herald there appeared
the following news :
“To-day from up and down India, reports are coming
in that the orthodoxy of centuries is giving way before
Mr. Gandhi’s sacrifice of himself.
“Not only is the sacred Kali Ghat temple at Calcutta
to be thrown upon to-morrow to all Hindus, but in
many other parts of India temples and wells are being
thrown open to untouchables.”
I his information, which appeared in several other
papers, was curiously re-inforccd by an article in the
Sunday Express. On September i 8 th, Charles M. Sellick,
who had represented that paper for four years in Bombay,
wrote with his usual anti-Indian bias, but nevertheless
admitted of Gandhi that:
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES
217
“The immense influence he possesses has never been
adequately realized by the Government either of India
or of England. He has done enough damage to But
prestige and British interests not to let him do any more.
lie has promised the masses of India, whom he does tfoublcetty
represent , a Utopia in the form of an India for the ' It 1 .
alone. ... He has become a martyr to his. millions oj jollowers.
Death will not remove the uncanny power of this amazing man.
Something of the general sympathy with this List and
its object may be gathered from the fact that nineteen
mills in Bombay suspended work on the day that the last
was commenced, owing to the non-attendance o wor ' crs *
The anxiety of the Government, both with regard to me
suppression of actual agitation and of news may be gatherc
from the following extracts:
“The Acting Secretary of the All-India Congress
Committee and another Congress worker, described by
the Public Prosecutor as the brains behind Congress
activity, were tried and convicted in Bombay to-day.
Outlining the case against the accused, the Prosecutor
disclosed the clever net-work of the organisation, and a s
showed that business firms in Bombay were acting as
dummy addresses for Congress communications. It was
shown also that weekly reports were issued for J orei n centr s.
An elaborate quarterly report on the activities of Congress
had been prepared by the accused at the instance of
Miss Slade. _ . • 1
“The Secretary of the Congress Committee said he
was anxious to make the case for the prosecution as easy
as possible. He was sentenced to one year and th
second accused to six months.
A few days later came the information that:
“The Government of Bombay to-day introduced m the
Legislative Council at Poona a Bill to slop hartals (strikes)
and the boycott of European members of the, cotton trade.
The result of the fast was that separate electorates for the
Depressed Classes were abandoned and an arrangemcn was
made instead whereby the Untouchables secure a minim
I ft
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
ir presentation of over twice the number of scats which had
been allocated to them under the Government’s “Com-
munal Award,” * a The cable of the Indian leaders to the
ltime Minister (Mr, MacDonald) announced that:
“Seats for the representatives of the Depressed Classes
m the Provincial Legislatures have been specifically fixed
i rgarding each province. The total number of seats in all
he provinces, ag reed upon, is 14.8 out of the general electorates,
in substitution for the seventy one given by your decision.
India will now anxiously await your immediate action .”* 9
Ibis astonishing chapter of Indian history ends with the
acceptance by the Bri tish Government of the scheme agreed
upon by Gandhi, the national leaders and the Depressed
Glasses. It was by then the one hope that India would so
much as look at the new constitution which was being forged
m London; and the Government undoubtedly avoided a
flesh Indian crisis by giving way 111 timeT 0
The problem of tlic Depressed Classes remained a real
one which Indian nationalism could never completely liqui-
date. But a new force had already appeared in the field,
(he growth and influence of which will be the subject of our
next chapter. That force was the tide of social revolt
which in the present day threatens the Brahmin piiesthood
as much as it menaces the propertied classes and the Empire
of Britain, As tins chapter is being written much is being
made in the Press of a foolish story that the Depressed
Glasses are about to join the Christian Church under the
fictitious leadership of Dr. Ambedcar. 51 The truth is
precisely the contrary; for in these outcastcs of a great
religion theic will be found in the coming years the raw
material of a mass movement that will turn its back upon
all priesthood and its face towards Socialism.
NOTES
^ a footnot V 0 “ iU (Vo1 T > P- 340) refutes the charge that
with h. L n °r c? d f anl y P e °Ple, and compares them favourably
o h^ a ° nS of ,?° t uth ? r " Europe. He adds that “there are many
benefit * ,P CS W " Ch nught be introd uced even into the North with
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES
219
A good Hindu bathes daily, always in running water, and he regards
the Western habit of sitting in one’s own bath-water with peculiar
disgust. lie is careful of his teeth, which he cleans regularly, and
regards it as a religious duty to wash out his mouth after eating any
food whatsoever. lie regards with horror the Western habit of using
paper for a cleansing process which, in his opinion, can only be properly
effected with water; and he can never understand how it is that the
Christian religion does not specifically enjoin the necessity of ablution
after the performance of all natural functions.
* Those who have studied the treatment of Negroes both in the
Southern States of America and in the Union of South Africa will find
it astonishing that the while races shoSuld profess to be shocked at the
treatment of “Untouchables” in India. It may be doubted whether
(he poorest classes in our own country are actually better treated than
the Indian outcaste. Mr. H. H. Wilson pointed out over 100 years ago
(and it is largely true to-day) that “the veriest Chandala who is one of a
community, is less miserable, less unhappy, than many of the paupers
of the civilised communities of Europe, with whom no man owns
companionship or kindred; they are the true outcastes — not the Pariah
or Chandala (Footnote to Mill’s History, Vol. I, p. 140.)
3 The Lothian Committee showed that their numbers had been very
variously estimated. (See p. 123 of the Report of the Indian Franchise
Committee of 1932.) The Provincial Governments estimated 37.45
millions in 1932, but the 1931 census gives roughly 52 millions as the
number.
4 For purposes of comparison it should be noted that the desire of a
British monarch in 1936 to marry outside his caste led to his abdication
and caused a sensation which monopolised the attention of the Press
for over a week.
s Toung India , June 26th, 1930.
6 September, 193T. These two quotations arc selected from a -host
of similar ones by other writers simply because in neither case can the
authority be dismissed as a “Gandhist.” It is perhaps superfluous to
remark that the present writer can confirm both these statements from
his personal knowledge of Mr. Gandhi, but I cannot forbear from
quoting as a final illustration of his attitude a letter that he wrote me
soon after my arrival in India. I had written in jest about my own
unsuccessful attempt to enter a Hindu temple, remarking that it was a
proper penance for the arrogance of the English race: and his reply
(dated Shahajarpur, Nov. 11th, 1929) contained the following para-
graph: “You are charitable about your being debarred from temple
entry and it is right for us all to be so towards one another. .But the
hideous truth is that this bar is a variety or the curse of untouchability.”
7 My Experiments with Truth , Vol II, in the Indian Edition.
8 Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in The Government of India , (pp. 43 and 5O
says tlmt “Parliament has not been a just and watchful steward of India.
Its seats are empty when it has its annual saunter through the Indian
Budget. . . . Very few members of Parliament have any real knowledge
of Indian affairs.”
Professor Thompson, who comments on the same fact in The Other
Side of the Medal, mentions an M.P. who asked a friend of his: “Whai’s
happened to that fellow Gander — or some such name — who used to
the White sahibs in india
020
* Ivc ,!S s ° much trouble?” This was, of course, before the events of
for which that fellow Gander” and his colleagues verc
1 1 It let ly preparing. 6
I L’ b’ C r , c ¥° n ° r b 0 * 1 ' , the Buddhists and the Moslems condemns the
" Ct ’^toxicants. Hinduism is more generous, but strongly favours
temperance Warren Hastings said that “the temperance of the people
■ India is demonstrated in the simplicity of their food and their total
. I’stmcncc from spirituous liquors and other substances of intoxication ”
ln-dny, however, the traffic in drink affords a considerable source of
tevenue to the Government, a fact which has made it a point of political
f,? passed m the Legislative Assembly in September,
■ f ^11 the elected Indian members present, to the number of sixty-
ic, voted for prohibition. The resolution was only opposed by
he twenty-five Europeans present and fourteen Indian officials or
Government nominees. The Assembly, however, was powerless to
make its resolution effective. Some notes on the subject of “drugs”
(l.r., principally opium) will be found in Chapter XIII.
10 Sir Alfred Chatterton, C.I.E., says that “for nearly half the year
lie cultivators m most parts have little or no work.” (Journal of the
I Hit India Association, July, 1930, p. 185.) J
11 Article in the Spectator, July nth, 1933.
"As E. S. Montagu noted in his Indian Diary, with regard to a
Pinions occasion, the stage-management of evidence for the Committee
u.is he work of the Government. The Madras Railway Union pro-
vied against this m 1932 with special reference to Labour evidence
> he wuncsses being selected by employers so as to stifle the universal
. ni and of organised Labour for Adult Suffrage. Similarly when a
Irmand for joint electorates was put forward by the Depressed Classes
n Bombay in a memorandum with 6,000 signatures, the Lothian
* •Ommittce was not allowed to hear evidence on behalf of the signatories.
"June 6th, 1932.
14 I he interest of nationalists and socialists in the cause of the
I rpressed Classes has, of course, been the occasion of numerous
Mnndcv ous statements. Jawaharlal Nehru was even accused in the
llrngal Administrative Report for 1934-5 of misappropriating funds collected
£ hc as ? ut .?" c . e of these classes. Nehru, who was then in England,
denounced this astounding and amazing lie” in the Manchester
, (December 10th, 1935), and enough publicity followed to
tine the withdrawal by the Bengal Government of its charges. Thev
ilui not, however, apologise. 7
11 See Chapter XI, and Appendix.
" Missionary policy has been in many respects comparable to that
. 1C over nment. Xohloff and Horst, two great Protestant mission-
" cs took the view that “To charge Protestant missionaries with
lie via ting from the scriptures because they allowed caste ... to subsist
appears to us highly uncharitable. ... We do not feel ourselves
Warranted to require of the higher ranks such an unscriptural surrender
their birthright, to which no nobleman or gentleman in our own
ountry uoud submit. (Quoted in the India Review, July 23rd, 1932.)
. ' " See Cha P ter XIII. Mr. J. A. Spender in The Changing East
tPP* 1 j 7» *94 )> remarks that only a government trusted by Indians
THE DEPRESSED CLASSES
22 1
and to a large extent manned by themselves will be able to combat
the religious and caste prejudices which impede reform. . . . It is
extremely difficult for the alien ruler, with his wholly different mentality,
to identify himself with the life of India. , . . Fundamentally the case
for Indian Home Rule rests on this radical fact.” By way of exception,
sali is almost the only social evil against which the Government has
ever taken any action.
18 The Indian Police (London, 1932), p. 76. The economic interests
of the police have been carefully identified with the Government, for
(as Mr. Curry shows) the principle has been followed since i860 that
“the pay of the lowest ranks shall be superior to that of an unskilled
labourer.” The same applies in the army to an even greater degree,
as it is important to alienate the Services from the people in interest
and sympathy.
1 0 The Indian Police, p. 69.
The caste system is even kept up by the Government in the Indian
jails; and in the Civil Disobedience Movement it was actually one of
the complaints of political prisoners that they were not allowed to do
scavenging unless they belonged to the appropriate strata of society.
(See the Bombay Chronicle , December 26th, 1930.)
10 In this State special efforts for the education of the Depressed
Classes have been made since 1883. Free schools were opened in
Baroda City and the principal towns, and even clothing, board and
lodging were provided free. There has since been a steady progress
In the facilities offered and a rise in the number of schools and scholars.
In 1928-9 there were in the Baroda State 217 schools for the Depressed
Classes, and the pupils attending numbered 9,333. In addition, 6,000
students belonging to the Depressed Classes were receiving instruction
in the ordinary schools; 9.1 per cent of the total population of the
Depressed Classes in the Baroda State were at that time educated, while
the general percentage of the educated population in India was only
8.1, taking all classes together,
21 In this connection it is not uninteresting to note that Miss Mayo,
in Mother India , reported an alleged incident when a crowd of “Un-
touchables” is supposed to have given a spontaneous ovation to the
Prince of Wales on his visit to India in 1921. This incident is entirely
unknown in India, and Miss Mayo’s assertion appears to be the only
evidence of it ever having occurred.
22 Meanwhile, it may be noted the Government still gives to the
police the right to arrest any “Untouchable” entering a Hindu temple.
2:1 The size of these crowds (which the present author witnessed
in every part of the country) was not more remarkable than their
enthusiasm. Even the correspondent of The Times (January 3rd, 1930)
recorded “the scenes of almost hysterical enthusiasm in the streets of
Lahore” when the Congress met there at the end of 1929. It is inter-
esting to contrast this description with the cheerful prophesies which
had filled the British-owned Press before the event. All the British
prophets had been agreed that Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs would
tear each other in pieces. (Sec Chapter XII.)
24 Spectator , July 26th, 1930.
** August 25th, 1930.
00 o
tiie white sahibs in India
in ik T o W Ad which'. ga«T„\S"a! /^‘T ^ "’T
Kill be found i,Zr SXwartS tt‘'7“ n ' “
and i^uT^Sr XV ° f ‘ he a, ‘ itude " f * h ' Government
Aswctata" of n SScu.tn et u„ r ;i ''Tr 1 ,'’ f" 011 ' 8 ,'^ b * ,hc "Royalist
“^ ,hou * any de " ial or
Rcn’an’SSS °/, <*
not only energetically rep, Le i the •'Pact " T ^ , Da,,a - wl >°
would never strain be r b d r , 5 . ’/ ut made Jt dear that he
community which had not chosen hhm P ° S!li0n of “^Presenting” a
CoveSLe^S i^uSng T* ^ ° f ">«
following in India he figures rontin it’ n , inn wltIlout an Y popular
of the “Untouchables.” S continually in the news as the “leader”
UhafFar Khan, leader of the "Ppri ci, - * *> /
;r“r anilialed *° ‘ he »- hno'vn^s Lic Ga^dhi'of
EmcpeLs'tTuLX , XeTI ^ *» f T> Ur »f
;;r appe. ? ,, a but ,, mdiL U.
s 4 November 13th, 1931.
. * Phis vital principle was recotrnised even l», .i, n c* y,
sioners (see Simon Report Vol n ,, r\ , C . y die Simon Commis-
electorate for Depressed (’Nq- * j), who remark that: “A separate
definition of all X arc covLd'by the term * P*®™' 1 ”* » ' ,re . dsc
already beginning Ll Jhich^ld , • 8 ‘'”” St <he P mccss which «
ssr
’* Truih ab out India (London, 1932), p. ,5.
87 See the Daily Herald of this date, in particular.
„ , ; Per CCnt of the adult Population without a vote
but ill net 1 7 £ir,o y d^!t^i r t0 f, com P lici, r tcd r “ an y brief analysis,
and peasants Sn^ r ? ^ hc m . ass of P oor and illiterate workers
later. The Lothian Rep^^wplWtiy^tata ''that - Y ff ‘r ”
the outset been the main foundation of the franchise ‘ It' ^ P er y has from
/» retain i, both for the provincial a,{l bi'iw iSS
T HE DE P R E S S E D CLASSES
223
we have endeavoured to lower the property qualification so as to bring
on to the roll the great bulk of the landholders, the tenants and the
urban ratepayers, and a considerable section of the poorer classes.”
(Report of the Indian Franchise Committee, 1932, Vol I, pp. 34-5.)
The “considerable section” of the poorer classes will be about 5 per cent,
or less and their representation in proportion to their numbers will
be negligible.
10 The ellcct of these separate electorates, taken all over the country,
is to give a statutory majority to the combined interests of the Indian
landlords, the Indian middle-classes, and the Europeans; and the
“Award” was immediately condemned on these grounds by the
President and Secretary of the All-India Trade Union Congress, also
by M. L. .Josbi, a very right-wing reformist leader. (Sec The Advocate
of Bombay, August 28th, 1932.)
11 1 It should be noted that this under-representation of the Depressed
Classes was advanced by Mr. MacDonald as an argument in favour of
accepting the scheme which hc had devised.
42 A reviewer in the Observer , September 25th, 1932.
1 3 Sir George MacMunn in the same issue of the Observer. Sir George
is the author of a book on The Martial Races of India, “ the men whose
hand can keep their head, to whom the Ghandis (sic) and other
pusillanimous but brainy intelligentsia are a jest,” as his publisher’s
blurbs continually inform us.
44 September 19th, 1932. The evidence collected by the delegation
to which Ellen Wilkinson referred was published later in their report,
Condition of India. (London, 1933.)
45 Daily Mail, September 21st, 1932.
44 Morning Post, September 16th, 1932. This subject is dealt with
further in Chapter XV.
17 Daily Mail , September 20th— the day the fast commenced. ■
48 This result was announced in the Daily Express of September 26th,
under the caption “Gandhi Climbs Down.”
49 Observer, September 25th, 1932. The proposed percentage was, of
course, still inadequate, but it was only a minimum; and in joint
electorates the Depressed Classes will be a political force in proportion
to their voting strength,
60 Mr. Brailsford in Reynolds' Illustrated Weekly (August 28th, 1933),
explained the action of the Government as being due to the fear of
Gandhi’s “ghost.” Dead hc could have been more trouble than he
was alive.
si i t
is doubtful whether the name of Dr. Ambcdkar is so much as
known to the vast majority of the “Untouchables”; and it would be
extremely surprising if more than a thousand out of their 40 to 60
millions ever became Christians at his suggestion. The proposal was
promptly repudiated by Mr. M. G. Rajah, who published some
illuminating correspondence with Ambcdkar in the Indian press,
CHAPTER XI
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT
K have already observed that the deepening of the
i inflict between the people of India and their rulers has
Urrn accompanied by the steady growth of an alliance
hr tween the Government and certain class interests in
India. In considering briefly the nature of these interests
Wr sliaI1 next observe how they operate and by what means
I lie Government has identified them, or is endeavouring to
Identify them, with British Rule. It is this process which is
gradually converting a national struggle into a conflict
uf social classes,
Indian bondholders who had subscribed to the East
India Company’s loans were among the first to acquire
« vested interest in the Government. To these were added
Rgiadually increasing body of Indian Government officials.
Without doubt, however, the Indian princes contributed
I lie first major acquisition, and they deserve more than the
Niipcrficial study which will be possible within the scope
of this book . 1 r
Ihe Indian States, autocratically ruled by Indian
princes, number to-day about 600, and have a population
°* over 80,000,000 inhabitants. They vary considerably in
mze, and represent for the most part either territories of
princes who were allies of the East Indian Company and
succeeded in surviving its embrace, or territories having
little commercial value or natural prosperity to recommend
them.
IIow these princes rule is little realised in this country,
and less so in the present age than in the past. Lord Curzon
tells us of a prince who shot his servant in a fit of temper,
of another who connived at the poisoning of his uncle, and
of a third who “ for nearly twenty years had been guilty of
gross maladministration, of shocking barbarity in the
j 224
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT 22$
treatment of his subjects.” 2 On the general conduct and
administration of the princes Sir Alfred Lyall made the
remark that:
“the protected autocrat in a Native State has not as
yet turned out such a success that the English nation can
be proud of having brought him out upon the political
stage.” 3
The present policy of the British Government towards
the princes dates in effect from the revolt of 18571 which
proved the necessity of reliable Indian allies if India was to
be indefinitely and securely held by her British rulers. The
era of conquest ended, and the era of consolidation began
with the assumption of control by the Crown. The princes
were no longer strong enough to prove a serious menace .
it was from the people themselves, under a new leadership,
that the next challenge was to come. But the princes were
still strong enough to be useful allies if they could be given
security in their possessions, and it was to this end that
British policy turned itself in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century. 4 As Lord Roberts said:
“It was the Mutiny which brought Lord Canning into
closer communication with the Princes of India and
paved the way for Lord Lytton’s brilliant conception^ of
the Imperial Assemblage — a great political success which
laid the foundation of that feeling of confidence which
now, happily, exists between the Ruling Chiefs and the
Queen Empress.” 6
The political relationship which binds the Indian princes
to the “ Paramount Power” (the British Crown) is commonly
held to imply three principles which may be summarized
as follows: There is firstly the “loyalty” principle, whereby
the prince is bound to support the Paramount Power and
acknowledge its supremacy. Secondly there is the principle
that the Paramount Power should protect the prince in
case of rebellion; and thirdly there is the principle that
the Paramount Power should protect the people of the
State from oppression by the Prince. 6
That the first principle is well implemented was evident
in the Great War and again at the Round Table Conference.
Ill h W HI I £ SAHIBS IN INDIA
°!} ^ arch Ist > 1930 (t-he very day before Gandhi
- l his final letter to the Viceroy before commencing
I . . ISO f ien ce) the Chamber of Princes passed a
r o!,,t ;? n P lacm S on rec ord its emphatic disapproval of
hr policy of separation from the British Empire * It is
!* ilCt ; a coi y im only accepted view in India, that this is
!*■ only possible policy for the princes to pursue if they
!° « all. Without British protection for these
inet iaeyal survivals it is generally assumed that the people
11I l ie Indian States would revolt and destroy them . 8
I his consideration brings us to the second principle and
• Milams why the Paramount Power is zealous in its dis-
| "" EC of ,ts du ty ‘0 protect the princes. This is due not
III a perverse desire to foster an anachronism for anti-
,| " :lna " reasons > ] out because those who only remain in
■ " liver by virtue of British support are bound to be them-
srlyes the most loyal of allies. Hence the Indian State has
ii'tome, to quote G. W. Steevens, “in its way, a paradise,”
Imm the point of view of the Raja.
inmeV h - e |° ld dayS . : V,' C S,Ult himself U P with opium and
, ,„,mrv S " S> a . nej ghbour would come and take his
Y * * / subjects might rise against mis-
government ; if they did it now British troops would come
l!idnir Uph ° d r?' A f f W years a S° the Thakurs of
.. . • : • did actually set about to depose their
King for incompetence and exaction . . but the
nnkar sent a column to put the Maharajah back again.”®
I he Product of this protection, plus an English education,
“ ^'"d f Public School Raja, the delight of the sociew
gossip-pedlar. » The English girl of the middle classes,
11 10 would call his poorer countrymen “niggers,” and
nourishes an almost religious horror of social contact with
‘ern^ hnds race prejudice no barrier when confronted by
Hie Public School Raja. Indeed, she is even proud to be
w cn r dan " m S with him. At the end of the last century
W - Steevens was already gloating over this trans-
rmation, and pointed with satisfaction to the proficiency of
le princes at polo, to the success of the Maharajah of
atiala as a cricketer, and of the Nizam of Hyderabad
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT 227
as “the best shot in the world.” I 11 The name of “Ranji
will recall even more to most English readers, whilst t le
present ruler of Kashmir, better known in this country as
“Mr. A,” also h as his diversions.
Naturally, as Steevens pointed out, “it is hard to get him
(the Indian prince) to take the least interest in the affairs
of his subjects.”
“After all, why should he? If a second Akbar were
born in India we should not let him rule in his own
way.” 1 2
Meanwhile, as recent examples show, the raja knows that
sufficient is our arm alone and his defence is sure.
It is, therefore, not remarkable that the Maharaja of
Patiala should have declared at the Round Table Con-
ference that “The maintenance of the British connection
is the fundamental assumption of our whole position.” 13
This prince had concrete reasons for such an assumption,
as the reader will find in the appendix to this book. He
had, moreover, already imprisoned 112 citizens of his own
State for celebrating “Independence Day’ and offered his
resources to the Viceroy to assist in ciushing Civil Dis
obedience in British India. .
Kashmir affords us another example of the ties that bind
the princes to the British Crown. Here, as it happens, the
people are mainly Moslems, while the prince is a Hindu
a fact which enables the British authorities to represent
every rising against the Maharaja as a problem of Hindus
versus Moslems. 14 Thus in 1931, when Moslem Nationalists
entered Kashmir and demonstrated against the Maharaja,
British troops were immediately sent to help the prince
suppress what was termed a “communal” disturbance. 15
A special ordinance was promulgated by the Viceroy
authorising magistrates in the Punjab to declare five or
more persons an illegal assembly if they met for the purpose
of going to Kashmir to oause interference in the ad minis-
tnition ^ ^
These Kashmir “disturbances” continued through the
early months of 1932. Their real character was revealed
when the Special Representative of the Daily Telegraph
Q
Ml THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
n ported on “this paradoxical position: a 'communal
1 1 hellion’ in which not a single Hindu has been killed.” 17
Hot hi after this an official report was issued on the riots of
iIm previous September. This report was the work of a
number of the I.C.S., who concluded that “the agitation
u.i'S directed against the State,” and that “it was not com-
munal in the sense of being directed against any other
' 'immunity.” 18 With the help of the Viceroy the Maharaja
mu ceeded, however, in crushing his subjects.
,1 low far the British Government fulfils its obligations
in protect the people of the Indian States may be best
iralised by a study of recent events in Patiala. 19 Por the
irsl it is clear that the methods of the British Government
.lie loo closely akin to those of the princes to make inter-
vention a practical matter, even if there were the will for
il. 20
Occasionally, however, the Government interferes. The
* uses are carefully selected and coincide curiously with
insubordination on the part of the prince or a default in
1 1 is financial obligations. As an example we have the ease
of Alwar, a prince who was prominently before the public
rye in 1933. In May of that year the papers announced
that the Maharaja of Alwar was about “to go abroad for a
year or two years’ holiday,” a news item which was coupled
with the statement that this “holiday” was the result of an
ultimatum from the Government of India. 21
Behind this announcement lay a long story of misrule and
extortion, which had led the peasants of Alwar State to
rebel and forced the Maharaja to call for British assistance
in suppressing them. 22 The real crime of the Maharaja,
however, was his financial embarrassment; for all his
extortions had failed to keep pace with his extravagance.
The Government of India had therefore intervened in the
interests of his creditors.
By the time the prince arrived in London the papers
spoke openly of his “banishment.” 23 He appeared once
more in the news when the front page of the Sunday Dispatch
told of a tragedy in his “luxurious West End suite,” where
one of his servants was found with his throat cut by a razor.
The man was still alive but could not speak
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT 229
“and the razor might have betrayed the hand that
wielded it. But in the confusion that followed the finding
of the dying man, somebody picked it up and washed
it clean.” 24
Two days later, however, an unnecessarily obscure
paragraph announced the verdict of the Coroner s jury
as suicide whilst of unsound mind; 25 and the Maharaja
lost his last chance of front-page publicity.
The extravagance of the princes is tolerably well-known.
The personal budget of the Maharaja of Mysore is about
one-fourteenth of the total revenues of his State, and he
spent the same amount (roughly £180,000) on entertain-
ing Edward VII I th when he visited India as Prince of
Wales. In 1929 Bikanir spent 3.6 per cent of its total budget
on works of public utility (including education) as against
22.6 per cent on the Maharaja s personal expenses. .
Patiala entertained fifty millionaires at the wedding of his
heir and it was recorded that
“Millions of pounds have been spent on the rejoicings,
though the normal annual revenue of Patiala State is
only £844,000, and the Maharaja’s 1,500,000 subjects
would have to toil for years to pay the costs of these weeks
of splendour.” 27
The Maharaja of Jamnagar is credited with the record,
being reputed to spend 50 per cent of his State revenues upon
his personal requirements. Nor did the popular Ranji,
Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, give his Indian subjects any reason
‘to join in the lament of the cricketing world at his death in
1933. One English paper remarked upon the fact that he
had been “a wonderful host to his English friends.
He had indeed. His expenditure on their entertainment
was phenomenal: £50,000 on Lord Sydenham; £80,000
on Lord Wiltingdon; on Lord Lloyd (then Sir George
Lloyd) £1*5,000, and the same for Lord Reading. He
reached his limit with £200,000 on the entertainment
of the Good Viceroy, Lord Irwin. 29 In “Ranji’s” dominions
there was no liberty of speech, no freedom for the Press,
no liberty of person or security of property, and no
■ 1 "
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
frpresentative institution. There was every form of
i V i.inny, including forced labour.
These Indian princes have their own private armies,
u 1 1 ieh are at the disposal of the British Government in times
nl war or civil revolt. They also contribute annual grants
i n (he special reserves of the Regular Army “so that if
(it rat Britain ever needs to call up the military resources
Of India she will have plenty from which to choose one of
l hr finest irregular armies the world has known.” 30
The princes have their own organisation, known as the
( ihamber of Princes, through which they co-ordinate their
i ommon interests and exert pressure when necessary on
I hr British Government. The Chamber consists of 109
princes plus twelve elected as representatives by 127 smaller
Slates. Patiala was for some years, till his resignation in
May, 1936, Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes and the
principal spokesman of its reactionary opinions. Its attitude
In the new Constitution has been rather uncertain because,
although the princes are to be given an extremely powerful
position in the Federal Government, 31 they fear that any
Indian Government over which they do not exert a
majority control may be less lax than the Viceroy in its
Supervision.
1 * rom the standpoint of the British Government it is,
however, essential to rope the princes into the new scheme.
As Lord Willingdon told the Chamber of Princes when
defending the Government White paper:
“It appears to me to offer you great advantages, and if
you choose to exercise them you will have weight and
influence in the Federal bodies which ivill go far to ensure
stability and ordered progress in India .” 32
On this pronouncement the Daily Telegraph commented
editorially that “the proposed allocation of seats to Princes’
nominees and to other consistently loyal and moderate
elements is such as to put the appearance of mischievous
or disaffected majorities out of question.” For, said the
Telegraph leader:
“The fact is that, even in those provinces where a
Congress party majority in the councils is a possibility,
231
T O \V ARDS SOCIAL RE V O L 1
the special powers reserved to the Governor provide fully
anainst any misuse of that situation; while in other
provinces the Congress party is destined to be a per-
manent minority. As for the Central Legislature, the
membership of it is intentionally devised, and most
properly so, to give a decisive weight to the more respon-
sible elements of Indian opinion. 33
Professor Rushbrook Williams, probably the most astute
of all the Government’s political agents and propagandists,
has summed up the whole position with class-conscious
clarity. Speaking as one who “knows the trend of mind in
the Native States, such as Patiala, where I serve,” Professor
Williams explained in 1930 that:
“The rulers of the Native States are very loyal to their
British connection. Many of them owe their very
existence to British justice and arms. Many of them
would not be in existence to-day had not British power
supported them during the struggles of the latter part
of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteen t
centuries' The Princes have a deep affection for King
George and a great liking for the Prince of Wales, whom
they have met in their own lands. Their affection and
loyally arc important assets for Britain in the present
troubles and in the readjustment which must come.
“On the whole, in my opinion, the Native States,
whether Hindu or Mohammedan, would side with His
Majesty’s Government in preventing the destruction of
British authority and the dissolution of the Indian
‘ Empire. If it came to a display of force, the military
power of the Princes, representing a very considerable,
well-aimed force of highly-trained and experiencec
fighting men, would be on the side of order the British
side.
“The situations of these feudatory States, checker-
boarding all India as they do, arc a great safeguard. It
is like establishing a vast network of friendly fortresses
in debatable territory. It would be difficult for a general
rebellion against the British to sweep India ^because o
this network of powerful, loyal Native States.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
A study of the position of the princes makes it clear
nl nationalism alone can never free India from foreign
initiation. Consequently those internal struggles which
ve so often developed more slowly under imperialist
Ir 36 are in modern India integrated with the fight for
tional independence. In the case of the princes this
U’gration can be simply expressed in the formula
ml there can be no independence for India while
ir princes remain, and no freedom from the princes
liilc the British remain. An American writer has
I’d cri bed the purpose of the Indian Stales as “camouflaged
Istcrs .” 3 6
for several reasons the revolt against the princes has
developed more slowly than the Nationalist Movement
m British India, notwithstanding such examples as those
ii I ready cited in Kashmir and Alwar. There is, to begin
with, the depressing certainty that, so long as the British
remain, no local struggle against an oppressive raja can
micceed in overthrowing him, owing to the boundless
resources of the Paramount Power. Secondly there is the
relative backwardness of these States in their industrial
development. This is due partly to the fact that the British
in their conquests occupied all the most fertile parts of the
country and those possessed of the greatest natural wealth.
On the other hand these mediaeval monarchies, artificially
preserved, are themselves the greatest obstacles to industrial
progress. The third cause that retards the development of a
revolutionary movement in the States is the illusion,
carefully fostered among the people, that they “already
enjoy Home Rule .'’ 37 As in every other country, an
oppressor in India can generally count on a little extra
indulgence if he is not a “foreigner" and wears the same
colour of skin as his victims.
In spite of these initial disadvantages, a movement has
nevertheless grown up against the tyranny of India’s feudal
despots. This movement has its main organisational ex-
pression in the All India States Peoples’ Conference, which
has done valuable work in exposing the rule of the princes.
At considerable risk to its leaders and adherents this
organisation undertakes the publication of journals and
T O W ARDS SOCIAL REVOLT ^33
other literature and was responsible for publishing the
Indictment of Patiala . 39 - . r
Such organised expressions of opinion are, ot cour ,
consistently ignored in all considerations of constitution!*
changes, when the princes are assumed to speak for their
people. Thus, in 1927, an official Committee was set up to
enquire into the political position of the Indian States, but
it refused to receive a deputation from the peoples of those
States; and the Simon Commission accepted in its report
the principle upon which this refusal was based. It is
interesting to note that the Chairman of the All India
States Peoples’ Conference described the conclusions ot
the Simon Report with regard to the Indian States as
“one-sided, defective, thoroughly reactionary and utterly
unacceptable." In a speech that was otherwise cautious
to the point of unnecessary moderation, the Chairman
later referred plainly to the fact that only the British
Government prevented the subjects of the princes from
“resorting to their birthright of rebellion and revolution,
and in his final words he advocated that the method ol
non-co-operation should be extended from British India
to the Indian States . 39 That step has not yet been taken;
but the two rebellions to which reference has already been
made are indications of a widespread spirit of revolt. •
The occasion of the Round Table Conference
the people were once more denied representation, which
was accorded only to their rulers) was utilised for a mam esto
“To the Nations of the World.” It is indeed regrettable
that this manifesto was given hardly any publicity in this
country ; 40 so that while the voice of nationalism in ^ ntl £ h
India and even of Indian socialism was dimly heard, the
80,000,000 people of the States could find no vehicle lor
their protest. . ,
In this campaign against the misrule of the princes the
States’ peoples have consistently refused to be drawn into
the feuds between rival despots 41 . The Toung Rajasthan,
produced against the greatest difficulties as a weekly paper,
exposed the abominations of forced labour, and drew par
ticular attention to its use in connection with Vicerega
visits to the States . 42 The editor of the Riyasat, a vernacular
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
tvtfkly of Delhi, was prosecuted in 1929 under the Princes
I'mlcction Act for his vigorous attacks upon oppression
Ih I lie States; nor has his been the only case of this kind in
Mint years. Both these papers have reported numerous
"'Itlical trials in the various States, indicating that activity
iiiciinst the princes has been continuous. Among the more
|n nit political trials Bikanir produced in 1932 a “miniature
Meerut trial” which was remarkable for a savageness worthy
11I its prototype. 13
After the princes the Indian landlords constitute the
must formidable curse of the present social structure.
"The landlord is too often a parasite, living on his tenants,
wasting his substance and corrupting his neighbourhood”: 11
inch is the verdict of an Englishman of orthodox opinions.
The political views of the landlord class have for some
lime past been expressed at landowners’ conferences, where
1 hey had vied with the Indian princes in their resolutions
(if devoted adherence to the British Empire. The Indian
landlord of to-day is in conflict not only with the growing
socialist movement, but with the middle-class nationalists,
because he sees no adequate prop for his interests once
British rule is ended. 45
'The clear alignment of this feudal element on the side
nl the British, who created it as a buttress against popular
icvolt, 46 is the most important of all the various factors
which arc transforming the national struggle for independ-
ence into a class conflict, and pointing to a socialist solution,
by an inevitable process the Nationalist Movement, drawing
its fighting strength mainly from the peasantry, is forced up
against the problem of Indian landlordism, and can neither
achieve its own objective nor retain its hold over the peasants
unless it is prepared to challenge these vested interests. 47
In this situation, as we shall observe, the socialist wing
or the Congress has in recent years made vast strides in
its internal struggle to capture the Congress machinery,
whilst the tactics of the Right-wing leaders have dis-
credited them throughout the zemindari provinces.
Since the beginning of 1936 there has been a remark-
able development of organised peasant activity directed
mainly against the landowners. Falling prices have reduced
TOWARDS SOCIAL RE V O L T 235
the villagers to the most complete destitution, so that the
payment of rent has in many parts of the country become
an impossibility. Whilst the Government has made remis-
sions in its revenue demands upon the landlords there has
been, in most cases, no corresponding remission made by
the landlords in their demands for rent; with the result
that organised strike-action has been taken by the tenant-
farmers, particularly in rice-growing districts. . .
Early in 1936 cultivators of sugar-cane at Blnta in Bihar
refused to supply cane to the sugar mills on the grounds that
they were not given fair prices and were cheated m weig 1-
ments. Some of these peasants were promptly arrested
without warrant by the police and detained with no charge,
at the request of the mill-owners. Peasant demonstrations
in Andhra occurred at the same time, and there was
agitation in the Indian States of Jaipur and Bhavnagar.
The attitude of the Government, both in the arrest 01
strikers and the extern ment of socialist workers from
centres of agitation, precipitated the formation of a nationa
peasant organisation under the title of the All India hisan
Committee . 48 Enquiry Committees were also set up by the
Congress throughout the country, and investigations (which
varied in thoroughness according to the political com-
position of the provincial Congress membership) were
carried out in June, 1936. The Congress Socialist Party,
which had been formed within the Congress to accelerate
its movement to the left, found in this new peasant activity
its first major opportunity. The Socialist leaders were able
to demonstrate that:
“Those who want to develop an anti-imperialist
consciousness among the masses, must make up their
minds about the native system of exploitation the
junior imperialism. They will fail in their purpose as
they have done so far, if they advocate the retention
of the latter and elimination of the former. An anti-
imperialist programme for the masses must be base
on the elimination of all exploiters. 49
This view, whilst it repelled many of the Congress
nationalists and exposed their position, forced the attention of
236 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
a powerful section. Among their successes the socialists were
able to announce in their weekly organ that the Enquiry
Committee appointed by the Bihar Congress Committee had
been greeted everywhere by thousands of peasants
“and recorded, after thorough cross-examination, the
evidence of more than 2,000 witnesses. The revelations
about the reported sale of sisters and daughters to pay
the landlords* rents have shocked the public and awakened
it to the horrors of agrarian life in Bihar. 1,50
Simultaneously the Congress Socialist Parly was building
up the peasant organisations and bridging the gulf which
bad hitherto separated the socialist intellectuals from the
peasantry. Throughout India in June, 1936, there were
held under socialist leadership conferences at which
thousands of villagers were able for the first time to for-
‘mulate programmes containing their own immediate
demands. The grievances of the villagers as expressed by
themselves included oppressive taxation of land, rack-
renting, indebtedness, unemployment (among the landless
labourers), forced labour, maladministration of irrigation,
and the taxation of wells.
By September, 1936, a mass movement had come into
being which neither the Government nor the Congress
could ignore. The Congress Socialist 61 records the shooting of
peasants heading demonstrations in Bengal and the use of
Ipecial legislation passed for the “Suppression of Terrorist
Outrages” in order to crush the peasant movement. The
billowing month the same paper 52 tells how in the Central
I'rovinces three thousand peasants surrounded the car of
Hit Indian Minister of the Provincial Government demanding
(bud and work. Eight thousand cultivators reaping the
cut Ion harvest in the Punjab struck at the same time
against the terms imposed by their landlords. Conferences
numbering as many as ten thousand and fifteen thousand
peasants were recorded from different parts of the country,
and eighty-six prosecutions of workers organising the
peasants were reported from Bihpur in Bihar.
I bis new political activity among the peasants has not
Men confined to any single aspect of their numerous
towards social revolt 237
grievances, but is significant chiefly for its clarification of
the most urgent class issue m India— that of the tenan
versus the landlord. By implication it has a so clai
the wider conflict between the debtor and creditor classes,
since the functions of money-lender and landlord are
commonly united in the same person The tendency for
years past in Indian village life has been hat either the
tenant falls into arrears with Ins rent and so into de
with the owner of his land, or, alternatively, that the peasant
proprietor falls into arrears with his taxes, borrows from a
usurer, and so becomes a “debt-slave” of his creditor,
who has first claim on all he produces.”
It may be mentioned here that the inevitable com-
petition between the claims of the Government revenue
and those of the money-lender has led the Pr ° vinc '*
Governments to facilitate co-operative banking since 190b.
The supervision of co-operative societies was one ot the
subjects^ “transferred” under the Montagu-Chelmsford
Reforms and has since developed slowly among the
Cinderella Departments entrusted to the limited ‘ P™“ S
and resources of the Indian legislatures. Such, howeve ,
is the destitution and economic uncertainty of the Indi
villager’s condition that lie generally prefers to borrow a
usurious rates with an undated termination to his loan rather
than to avail himself of the more moderate but more rigid
terms of co-operative credit. 51 , .
While the peasant is at last at grips with the thre
headed monster of rent, revenue and interest, the industrial
worker can show a longer history of struggle in which we
can recognise the emergence of a new revolutionary ■
We have already noted the growth of an Indian industna
system, bringing with it new social classes, numerically sma
in relation to the whole population, but influential m t
effect upon political development. We have now to consider
the more recent history of Indian industrialism.
Less than 10 per cent of the Indian population is sup-
ported by industries, as against sixty-seven which is direct y
dependent upon agriculture. Organisation among
industrial workers dates from 1884, when a conference of
Bombay workers set forth their grievances in a memoria
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
carrying 5,500 signatures, 55 In the years that followed
organisation developed under a reformist leadership, and
die Bombay Mill 1 lands’ Association was created in the
'nineties. This association could not be termed a trade
union, having “no roll of membership, no funds and no
rules 56 but by 1894 the workers of Bombay had advanced
■ ufficiently to carry out two small strikes, and in the follow-
mg year a strike of 8,000 mill operatives is recorded at
Ahrnedabad. 57
Further strikes took place at Bombay in 1897 and in
the Government Press at Madras in 1903, the latter being
broken by convicts from the penitentiary. A strike in the
Government Press at Calcutta in 1905 led to gains for (lie
operatives, but their leaders were victimised. Through-
out this period organisation functioned mainly on an ad
hoc basis and operated against great difficulties. The mill-
owners imported outside labour to break strikes “but the
newcomers usually joined the rank and file shortly after
llicir arrival.” 68 The employers then sought to increase
l heir control over the workers by housing them in quarters
owned by themselves. But one fact operated in favour of
the working-class, namely the shortage of labour in the early
■ lays when the mills were growing rapidly and poverty had not
yet compelled so many peasants to seek work in the towns.
In 1907 workers at the Samastipur Railway workshop
in Bengal struck for better wages and obtained some small
concessions. In Bombay, where there had been strikes
m 1907 and 1910, a new association was formed to obtain
■1 reduction of the working hours to twelve per day and to
demand workmen’s compensation. It was not, however,
(ill after the outbreak of War in 1914 that any considerable
advance was made organisationally.
The War created a shortage of products usually imported
luun abroad and an increase in the demand for Indian
goods. In tins situation the Indian workers were in a
favourable position to demand the increase in wages which
1 he general rise in prices made necessary. After a series
oi strikes in 1917 there was a general increase of 10 per cent
to 30 per cent in wages. Further strikes followed in 1918,
when the Madras Labour Union was formed. The Whitley
■I- O W ARDS SOCIAL R E V O L l
239
Report records that strikes were even more numerous during
the winter of 1919-20, and that in the winter which followed
“industrial strikes became almost general in organised
* 1 ^ p 3 3 5 3
"Ylic first political strike occurred in 1919, when workers
in almost every industry responded to a call for a cneia
Strike against the Rowlatt Acts. By this time there were
four Trade Unions in Madras, witli a membership of 20 000
persons. Similar unions were now founded m Bombay
Ahrnedabad, Calcutta, and other industrial “ntres
December of 1919 the workers of seventy- two Bom ay
factories sent their representatives to a conference, at wh eh
a memorandum was drawn up, demanding a reduction
of hours and increase of wages, the refusal of these demant s
being followed by a series of strikes in the cotton mills.
I„ 3 1020 the All-India Trade Union Congress was formed
and held its first meeting at Bombay. Sixty unions affiliate
and an era of intense conflict began, mainly 011 the issue 0
working hours. This resulted in a Factory Act, securing a o-
hour week for some of the workers with a maximum working-
day of eleven hours, or six hours in the case of children.
Working-class agitation combined with the force of foietgn
competition, as exercised through the I.L.O., to corope
such industrial legislation. Thus an ml, an M
of 1023 limited hours to sixty for workers above giounc
and fifty-four for underground workers, whilst the employ-
ment of children under the age of thirteen m mines was
prohibited. At the Washington Labour Conference, w lcn
India had been asked to raise the age of admission to twdve
for children in all factories, mines and i ail ways, rie _
Government had felt that this was going too far lhe
proposal, sponsored by Mr. N. M. Joshi (an Indian reformis
leader) and other workers’ delegates, obtained ninety-one
votes to three, the three dissentients being the delcga es
of the Indian Government and the Indian employers.
The double pressure to which we have referre was ncvci
thclcss strong enough to force the passing of the 1922
Factories Act, already mentioned. ^ i- t *
In spite of such legislation Indian industrial conditions
and the legal protection of workers remained deplorab c
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
* very comparison with European standards. A League
Nil (ions Union brochure (published in 1928) quotes
■I' nre that in the Bengal coalfields “a woman may have
11 ry a basket containing a load of sixty to eighty pounds
<•11 idcrable distance (200 yards) and up a steep incline.” 62
1I1 regard to the employment of women in mines it is
tin sling to note that power to prohibit the employment
women underground was given in an Act of 1901 but
1 ' xcrcised till 1929, when women were excluded from
iil< (ground workings ‘‘except in exempted mines.” 83
Auording to the Whitley Report the mines “exempted”
Iftudcd all but 3,000 women employed underground in
•1 -If; so that over 25,000 women were permitted to continue
" work for the time being. In these “exempted” mines
percentage of women employed underground was to be
-lin rd by 3 per cent or 4 per cent annually. The Whitley
■(lint noted that in spite of these regulations the Govern-
"if hi salt mines in the Punjab were employing fresh women
iverk crs. 64 These women were employed in “carrying salt
baskets for a considerable distance up and down steep
■ lines” and the Whitley Commission was “struck by
r poor health of the miners and their families.” 66
I lie employment of women for such purposes and of
lnldrcn in the Indian factories is not only indefensible in
llirl ( , but is among the causes of the low wage standard
in Indian industries. We shall revert later to this subject
itli particular reference to its effect on the standard of
icing in other countries. 66 The Whitley Report revealed
1I1 it only a minority of the workers were protected by such
legislation as existed, since the great majority of workers
were employed in unregulated establishments.
I he appointment of the Whitley Commission proved
In itself the occasion of a setback in the development of
working-class organisation. The Trade Union Congress
li.ul already lost prestige with the workers on account of
il'i failure to support the textile strike of 1924, when over
1 iio, 000 mill operatives, throwing up their own organisation,
bid come out against the withdrawal of an annual bonus
I'V the millowners. 0 7 In 1929 the Trade Union Congress,
Imving moved to the left under a more militant leadership,
towards social revolt
241
was split by the disputed question of co-operation with the
Royal Commission. By a majority vote it was decided to
boycott the Commission; but the right-wing elements
broke away on this issue and formed the Indian Tiades
Union Federation.
In Bombay the big strike of 1924 had led to the emergence
of a new revolutionary leadership which failed, however,
10 stabilise either its own position with the Bombay mi -
workers or the organisation which it created. A prolonged
strike in 1928, lasting over six months, had been conduc cc
by the newly-formed Girni Kamgar, or Red l'lag Union.
'I bis strike bad ended with the promise of an enquiry by
a committee which had been appointed under the chairman-
ship of Sir Charles Fawcett. The arrest of the militant
leaders of the Bombay workers and their trial at Meeru
with other working-class leaders has already been noted
among the political events of this period. This arrest of
leaders three days before the report of the Fawcett Com-
mittcc had been timed to anticipate the Committees
findings, which were entirely in favour of the millowners
The strike of 1929, which had followed this report and lasted
almost as long as the 1928 strike, left the Bombay wor ers
exhausted and rcsourcelcss at the very moment when the
split in the Trade Union Congress weakened the position ol •
the working-class throughout India. 69
Such was the position of the working-class in India
on the cvc of the great national struggle of 1930, and
it largely accounts for the absence of any effective working-
class policy during that period. The mass movements o
1024 and 1928-9 proved to have no organisational stability,
a fact due largely to the extreme poverty of the workers
but quite as much to their reaction against an ultra-lett
leadership. 70 Working-class activity received a further
setback in 1929 with the passing of the Trades Disputes
Act making illegal all political strikes, sympathy strikes
or strikes “in breach of contract” carried out by employees
of a public utility service. . , _ . . . . ,
In spite of the temporary lull in the industrial field whic
followed the events of 1929, there has been a revival o
activity since 1934, when the cotton operatives again
242
I' ]I E WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
came out in a big strike involving 70,000 men. 71 On this
occasion the Government promptly arrested one of the
Trade Union leaders (Mr. B. T. Ranadive) who was allowed
bail only on condition that he would not participate in the
conduct ol the strike. This was followed by the arrest (at
the end ol April and the beginning of May, 1934) of twenty-
four other leaders, including four who had been accused
m the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The arrests were executed
under the Bombay Special Emergency Powers Act on the
. . arrested were Communists who had
fomented tUc strike for political purposes against the
general inclination of 70,000 mill operatives. 7 2
rile occasion of the 1934 strike was the attempt of the
Bombay millowners to make further reductions in the
wages of the workers, which averaged roughly 2 s. 3 d.
per day in the case of men and rr. id. for women. 73 In
addition to arresting the leaders of the workers, the police
noke up demonstrations by lathi charges on the strikers,
attacking them even when they “resorted to passive
resistance and squatted in front of some of the mills/’ 74
A few days later the police fired on working-class “rioters”
and killed one person, wounding four. 75 The London
Observer reported as early as April 29th (in the first days
of the strike) that “the total casualities are more than a
hundred mill hands injured, and three are suffering from
revolver shot wounds, while, of the police, a dozen officers
and fifty constables were struck witli stones and other
missiles.” The same report stated that “hunger and
destitution may drive the men to greater violence.”
Tactics similar to those used in 1934 have been adopted
hy the Government on subsequent occasions. Thus in
J a y* * 936 , when a strike broke out in the cotton mills
or Lucknow, the Government of the United Provinces
promulgated an order under Section 144 (Criminal Pro-
cedure) prohibiting an assembly of more than five persons
near the mills, whilst notices were served on the office-
bearers of the Lucknow Textile Workers’ Union not to
come within a half-mile radius of these mills. 70
The general position of working-class movements in
India at the end of 1936 may be described as definitely
T Cl W ARDS SOCIAL REVOLT. ^ 43
ealthier than it lias ever been before. Unity has been
^-established between the rival trade union organisations,
nd the Congress Socialist Party, under the able leadership
f Tawaharlal Nehru, has simultaneously permeated bot
lie industrial organisations and the nationalist movement,
t has also, as wc have observed, championed and led tc
icasants in their struggles against the landlords and the
Government and identified itself with the people of the
indian States against their rulers.
The Trade Union Congress, at its last annual conference,
adopted a resolution declaring that the “minimum deman s
of the working-class cannot be secured without the attain-
ment of independence” and decided to enter into close
co-operation with the Indian National Congress on the
grounds that “it is to-day the best available means_ of
effecting a united front of the Indian people against
Imperialism and its native allies.” Specific co-operation
in this field was urged with regard to such questions as the
new Constitution, civil liberties and war, whilst at the same
time the T.U.C. pressed the National Congress to accept
its scheme for the collective representation of working-class
0r OnX‘thrcc issues specified the T.U.C. and the National
Congress have a close practical convergence of pohey, each
being pledged to fight the Constitution from within by
contesting all elections, refusing ministerial offices an
wrecking the Constitution by obstruction. On the War
issue each organisation is pledged to oppose any imperialist
war and to continue its struggle against the Government.
These questions of policy with regard to the Constitution,
imperialist war, and class collaboration against the Govern-
ment will be further discussed in the final chapter of this
book, where the Socialist strategy will be briefly examined.
Before dealing with the task of the revolutionary forces it
is necessary, however, to examine the most formidable
of all the obstacles to unity, whether working-class or
national in character. Our next chapter is therefore con-
cerned with the Hindu-Moslem problem, and this will be
followed by a brief examination of the means by which
ignorance and prejudice arc fostered in this country ant
^44 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
in India in order to create and maintain racial barriers
between the masses in the two countries.
NOTES
1 The “loyally” of the princes is itself partly clue to the Government
policy of forcing them to invest their hordes in Government securities.
(Sec Blunt’s Diaries, pp. 678, 682.) Where their treasure was their
hearts naturally migrated.
I Leaves from a Viceroys Notebook, by Lord Curzon, p. 42.
3 Asiatic Studies, bv Sir Alfred Lyall, p. 225. There arc, of course,
better governed States, which have already been mentioned in connec-
tion with such matters as education. These exceptions help to prove
what is possible throughout India, but they are not typical of the rule
of the Princes,
* During the revolt itself the majority of the princes had taken the
side of the British. According to Major Evans Bell they proved “break-
waters to the storm which would otherwise have swept over us in one
great wave.” ( Last Counsels of an Unknown Counsellor. London, 1883.)
5 Forty-one Tears in India , by Lord Roberts (Preface.)
* These principles were clearly elucidated by the Butler Committee
and are held to apply universally, whether explicitly expressed in
treaty form or otherwise.
7 The loyalty of the princes lias, of course, been further fostered by
the policy of superintending the education of minors. (See In India by
G. W. Steevens. London, 1899, p. 264.)
6 See, for example, India : Peace or War , by G. S. Ranga Iyer, (London,
1930). p. 163. The author is very moderate in his political views, but
clearly takes this point for granted.
* In India by G. W. Steevens. pp. 262-3.
1 0 Mr. G. T. Garratt in An Indian Commentary calls the colleges where
the young Princes are trained “institutions which faithfully reproduce
the worse features of the English Public Schools,”
II In India, by G. W. Steevens, pp. 264-5. The evolution of the
Public School Raja has completely falsified Mr. Aldous Huxley’s dictum
that “superiority in India is a question of epidermis.” A good bank
balance and the correct school tie will even atone for a brown skin,
though a white skin needs neither.
1 1 In India, p. 265.
11 News Chronicle, Nov. 30th, 1930.
14 This type of misrepresentation will be dealt with further in
Chapter XI 1.
ls The Manchester Guardian of November nth, 1931, makes it clear
that the “trouble” was started by Moslem “Red Shirts,” that is to say
by a Nationalist organisation affiliated to the Congress. In spite of this
admission the Guardian described the disturbances as “communal.”
1 * Manchester Guardian, Nov, 1 1 th, 1931.
17 Daily Telegraph, Feb. 8th, 1932. This paper on the same day
reporter 1 m attack on “police and revenue ollicials” at the capital
city of Kashmir by “a crowd of 4,000, fired by seditious speeches.”
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT 245
1 3 Middleton’s Report as summarised in the Associated Press cables
from Jamnu (Feb. 17th, 1932). The Times (Feb. 28th, 193a) went so
far as to admit that “ even Hindu opinion seems impressed with the
need for an immediate clean-up in Kashmir.” The word “even” is
entirely unnecessary.
19 See Appendix. P. L. Chudgar’s book, Indian Princes under British
Protection should be studied for further examples.
20 In March, 1931, Bhopal State promulgated through a Gazette
Extraordinary an ordinance on the lines of the Bengal Ordinances,
'pile Viceroy was hardly in a position to criticise!
21 Evening Standard, May 20th, 1933. Compare also the case of
„ Irk
22 Alanchcster Guardian, Jan. 18th, IQ33*
23 News Chronicle, July 7^1, ! 933*
2 4 . Sunday Dispatch, Dec. 17th, 1933.
25 Morning Post , Dec. 19th, 1 933-
26 Chudgar’s Indian Princes under British Protection (1929). According
to the Literary Digest (Dec. 3rd, 1927) Alwar spent over nine times as
much on his motor cars as the amount spent in his State on education.
27 Daih Herald, March 14th, 1933. The Nizam of Hyderabad spent
£38,000 "on entertaining Lord Irwin, though this was nothing to the
amount spent by “Ranji” for the same purpose.
Such figures as these do not always tell us the wont; for the sum
of £ 11,000 spent in 1926-7 on the heir-apparent of Limbdi State was
singly entered as part of the expenses of the Education Department.
2B Evening Standard, April 3 rc h *933*
s e These figures are given in rupees (with full details in the case of
Lord Irwin) in Indian Princes as their People See Them, (Pamphlet No. i),
published at Bombay by the Indian States’ Peoples’ Conference. The
State of Nawanagar has a tobacco monopoly, and an instance is cited
where a whole village was fined for not buying this State tobacco, on
the assumption that since the people were not buying from the State
they were probably smuggling. The people were also forced to
consume their quota of State— manufactured salt.
30 Article on India's Private Armies, by P. J. Clancy, who also mentions
that “like many other loyal landlords in India, Sir Umar Hayat Khan,
K.C.I.E., of the Punjab, keeps special reserves of troops at his own
expense to aid the Government in emergency.” (Edinburgh Evening
News, Jan. 1st, 1932.)
31 In the new Federal Assembly the princes will have 105 representa-
tives out of a total of 355. In the Upper House (the Council of State)
they will have 1 04 representatives out of a total of 260. With the landed,
commercial and European interests (all represented out of proportion
to their numbers) the princes will combine to form a permanent majority
of reactionaries in both Houses.
32 Daily Telegraph, March 21st, 1933 (Our italics). It should be
remembered that an American Admiral defined stable government as
“Government under which foreign capital can be safely invested.”
33 Telegraph leader, March 21st, 1933. The reference to “permanent
minorities” of Congress opinion presumably refers to the property
TIIE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
U.jp
i|it.ili[ication and the general manipulation of the electoral system to
filn.nn “loyalist" majorities as far as possible. The “responsible
• Indents ” of the Central Legislature will be headed by the princes.
M Evening Standard, May 28th, 1930. Rush brook Williams accom-
I'ttiial Patiala when the latter represented the Indian Princes at the
I of Nations in 1925, and he is credited with having “organised"
1 1 |( * princes in their more adroit political moves. In comment upon
hmhhrook Williams’ enthusiasm for the princes it is interesting to note
• I iiit even the Government, in its 1921 Census Report, admitted the
milt cnee of slavery in their territories.
I •* Eg., in Ireland, where nationalism for many years obscured rather
llum clarified the conflict of classes.
I M E. Holton James in Unity (Chicago), May i8th, 1931.
17 Holton James, in the article cited above, quotes an cxampl
Ibis from Bangalore. The same illusion is often exploited in Engl;
tvlih the object of discrediting nationalism.
** See Appendix. This exposure of the Chancellor of the Chamber
-.1 1* linces laid its authors open to the heaviest sentences of imprisonment
tinder the Princes’ Protection Act. It also endangered the lives of all
concerned, including the witnesses.
'* Professor Abhyankar at the States Peoples’ Conference, Bangalore
Nmion, August 30th, 1930.
111 The Manchester Guardian Weekly (June 191I1, 193]) did indeed publish
nn obscure paragraph, stating that “The Indian States Peoples’
1 Inn lerence, which has been silting in Bombay, has passed a resolution
irpndiating the claims of the Princes to represent their subjects at the
Hound Table Conference, and urging that due provision be made for
1 he representation of their views in their own right at the proceedings
hi 1 he Federal Structure Committee and the Round Table Conference,
nod to Mr. Gandhi in particular— -in whom the Conference expresses
lull confidence — to safeguard the interests of the people of the Indian
Mates."
c of
gland,
I 11 Sec, for example, the 1 oung Rajasthan on t he Patlala-Nabha
dispute (October 24th, 1929).
I 41 According to the Young Rajasthan, when a distinguished British
nllicial visits one of the States thousands of villagers are commonly
pressed into service, without remuneration, to stand all night at intervals
along the line where the special train of the distinguished official is to pass.
1 I icy arc all responsible with their lives for the safety of one foreigner.
,s The accused in this instance were kept over three months without
li'iil, and when legal proceedings began were made to walk over three
miles in the scorcliing sun, heavily handcuffed.
I 14 Rusttcus Loquitur, p. 332, by M. L. Darling, I.G.S.
Vera Anstey, in her Economic Development of India, calls the Zemindars
"mere parasites who batten on the product of the cultivators.”
" See New Statesman and Nation , April 23rd, 1932, p. 514.
** See Rebel India , pp. 132-3.
41 Mr. Brailsford shows that in the Punjab the income from the land
U divided between the landlord and the tenant in the ratio of
•V’ ,0 55* That is to say, the landlord has nearly threequarters of the
TOWARDS SOCIAL REVOLT 2J7
profits of agriculture as his rent. (Sec Rebel India, p. 49.) This was the
normal ratio, before prices fell
48 Similar peasant, organisation had been fore-shadowed in 1922 in the
United Provinces, but it did not spread further and died out in the years
following the termination of Non-Co-operation. Rent strikes also took
place in the United Provinces in 1930-32. Further reference to these
strikes will be made in the final chapter.
4 8 Why Socialism ? by J. P. Narayan. Several copies of this book
have been seized by the police, though it lias not been formally banned
by the Government as yet. Such seizures of literature are very common.
(See Leaves From the Jungle, pp. 139, 141.)
50 The Congress Socialist, Juno 27th, 1936.
4,1 September 2fith, 1936.
6 2 October 10th, 1936.
63 The Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India
(p. 418) states that “the introduction of established law and permanent
Civil Courts and the enactment of such measures as the Contract Act
have strengthened the position of the moneylender." Vera Anstey,
in her Economic Development of India, quotes a similar opinion from Indian
Co-operative Studies, by B. A. Collins, who held that these institutions
tended “to reduce the more important party to slavery or indigence.”
'Phis is especially the case among the primitive tribes. The 1931 Census
Report quotes the opinion of the Deputy Commissioner of Amraoti that
“the ordinary law of contract operates harshly owing to the poverty,
ignorance and honesty” of the people, who “are generally inclined to
trust the money-lenders to be as honest as they are themselves.” This
statement, marie with reference to the Korkus (an aboriginal tribe) is
confirmed by Mr. Elwin with regard to the Gonds. ( Leaves from the
Jungle, p. 50.)
51 In 1931 only t.3 per cent of the Indian cultivators were members
of Co-operative Banks.
6S Trade Unionism and Labour Disputes in India, by Ahmad Mukhtar.
(London, 1935), p. 11.
68 Report on the working of the Factory Act, Bombay, 1892.
57 The facts regarding strikes, etc., up to 1914 are taken from Mr.
Ahmad Mukhtar’s book, cited above. The author is employed in the
Bombay Educational Service, and his book carries a foreword by
J. F. Glennings, Commissioner of Labour and Registrar of
Trade Unions at Bombay,
68 Trade Unionism and Labour Disputes, p. 15. The creation of “yellow”
unions was a later development of policy to the uses of which Mr.
Brailsford refers in Rebel India (p. 87).
58 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, 1931.
80 This Act applied only to factories employing not less than twenty
persons, with Government discretionary powers regarding smaller
concerns. (See India and the International Labour Organisation, League of
Nations Union Brochure, 1928.) Quotations from the Whitley Report
given in Chapter XIV will show how effective legislation has proved.
61 India and the International Labour Organisation, pp. 24-25. According
to Mr, W. N. Ewer (Daily Herald, May 4th, 1934.) “Every convention
proposed at the I.L.O. Conferences at Geneva has been opposed by
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Clmi'rnment of India.” In the Indian Legislative Assembly the
H '■ filiation of Labour by a handful of Government nominees has
\’i been a farce, and it will not be very different under the new
i nut ion. The Government will in future decide which trade
mi are to be represented (in the past “yellow” unions were created
llni purpose) and where the members are illiterate the employers
In prepare the registers.
' htilia and the International Labour Organisation, p. 40.
" Report of (he Royal Commission on Labour in India, p. 127. The Report
■' dir number of women employed underground in 1928 as 28,408.
M’ It r port of the Chief Inspector for Mines for the year 1929 shows
ill piils of twelve, thirteen and fourteen were among the forty-seven
mien killed in Indian mines during that year.
'* Royal Commission Report, p, 127.
** ’I he same, p. 108.
** Sec Chapter XIV.
" trade Unionism and Labour Disputes in India, pp. 37-38. This
III hoi ily states that “the operatives afTccted had scarcely any union.
In- strike was sufficiently prolonged and yet it was free from acts of
| tl | rn( - c ” — a f ac t which did not prevent Government troops from firing
mi 1 lie peaceful demonstrations of the Bombay workers.
( " According to Brailsford, writing in 1931 (Rebel India, p. 87) the
fnmt hamgar had at the height of its power over ^0,000 members and
Inul by then sunk to some 500. Brailsford praises its vitality but con-
iltlri's it “strained the endurance of the men too far.”
" The Meerut Trial will be further discussed in Chapter XV. The
on strike in Bombay on May 2nd, 1929, was officially announced
In lie 150,000 ( Hansard , May 6th, 1929).
Miss Beauchamp, in British Imperialism in India (p. 198), writing
mu ;i Communist, admits the mistake of that party “in allowing them-
*Hvrs to become isolated from the mass anti-imperialist movement” and
dmws how this mistake prevented the Communists from playing a
lending part in the events of 1930.
’ 1 The Observer , April 29th, 1934.
,T This is the reason given in the statement of the Bombay Govern-
ment, published in The Times of April 30th in explanation of the first
fourteen arrests. According to this statement the whole working-
rlass of Bombay was apparently “intimidated” by “Communists.”'
W. N. Ewer in the Daily Herald of May 4th, 1934, gives the even
Inver average figure of 14s. per week for men and 7s. for women. lie
describes the Bombay cotton operatives as “some of the lowest paid
factory workers in the world.”
7 4 Daily Herald , April 25th, 1934.
Ti Daily Herald, April 28th, 1934.
7 * Prohibitory Order of May 22nd, 1936. The Times of January 6th,
' 93*8 published a cable from its correspondent at Kuala Lumpur
d< M ribing an even more ingenious method; 200 coolies who were on
strike at a rubber estate were “induced to enter prison premises on the
pretext of securing food and drink”; 100 were then arrested and
nineteen leaders were deported.
71 Fifteenth Session of the A.I.T.U.C., May 17th-! 8tb, 1936.
1
CHAPTER XII
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
The name of Chittagong, in Bengal, has been periodically
before the British public ever since the raid on the Chitta-
gong Armoury by Indian Terrorists in April, 1930 -
In July of the same year there began the trial (by a special
tribunal sitting at Chittagong) of fifty-six persons accused
in the Armoury Raid Case, including twenty-three
“absconders” who were tried in their absence. Ever since
the raid Chittagong appears to have been the scene of
frequent skirmishes between the police and the revolu-
tionary organisation that carried out the raid. Indians
have been systematically disarmed and Europeans allowed
to carry arms for protection.
The Armoury Raid Case ended with the conviction of
all but sixteen of the accused. The sixteen who were
acquitted were immediately re-arrested under the Bengal
Ordinance, which empowered the authorities to detain
them indefinitely without any stated charge against
them.
Sensational as this case was, it was overshadowed in
importance by the Chittagong Riots of August, 1931. These
were freely termed “ Hindu-Moslem riots,” not only by
the Government and the ordinary ill-informed British
journalist, but even by writers and papers of some repute
in apparent ignorance that there was even another version
to be considered. 1 The facts of the case are as follows:
On August 1 st, 1931, the Calcutta Statesman , (a British-
owned daily) quoted European “Royalist” views favouring
“ a vigorous policy of reprisal and summary vengeance 3 ' (against
Indian Terrorists) and endorsed the view that terrorism
must be driven out by terror. Similar propaganda was
carried on for some time in this manner, the Statesman
publishing a black list of offending nationalist journals,
249
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
y V>
i m hiding the Panchajanya of Chittagong, which will be
mentioned later.
In spite, however, of threats from Indian Terrorists
>fi i the one hand and European “Royalists” on the other,
i here appeared reason to believe that the Government
li.wl full control of the situation. Mr. W. D. R. Prentice,
nl (he Bengal Government (Political Department), in
picseiUing his demand for a supplementary grant for the
police, referred to the precautions that had been taken to
ensure safety in Chittagong. 2 This is important in view
nl die intensity and long duration of the riots only a month
filer, and the fact that they eventually came to an end
without firing by the police — a “necessity” to which they have
o often been driven by much smaller disturbances.
On August 30th the Police Inspector of Chittagong
(,i Moslem) was murdered. The alleged “Hindu-Moslem
lints” took place during the night after this event and on
(hr following day. On September 1st the Calcutta Statesman
published the news as “communal rioting at chitta-
uong,” emphasising the fact that the murdered man was a
Mohammedan, and his assailant a Hindu. The next day
the Statesman announced the restoration of order by the
police after damage had been done worth a crore of rupees. 3
On September 3rd a public meeting was held in the
Albert Hall, Calcutta, and a committee of well-known
Indians (including the editor of a Moslem paper) was
■ippointed to enquire into the disturbances at Chittagong.
Pour days later this non-official committee arrived at
( lliittagong and proceeded to visit the scenes of disturbance,
to take evidence from eye-witnesses and sufferers, and to
take photographs of scenes of destruction. 4
The authorities refused all assistance, but shortly after
this an official enquiry was ordered by the Government.
The non-official enquiry committee protested against the
Government enquiry being conducted by the Divisional
Commissioner, whom they described as “one of the persons
whose conduct required, and requires, investigation.”
The enquiry by the non-official committee terminated
on September 3rd. Its main conclusions, which were
unanimous, were:
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
25 1
(1) That disturbances were caused by British officials and non-
officials with Mohammedan police.
(2) That looting was carried on at police instigation
and with their protection.
(3) That the motive was to terrorise people, especially
Hindus.
The committee in its report cited a considerable number
of witnesses, both Hindu and Moslem. *X hey claimed that
there was no evidence of strife between the 1 Undil and Moslem
communities, in spite of efforts to create such strife. They said
that attacks were principally directed against those who
had incurred official displeasure, including lawyers engaged
in the defence of persons accused in the Armoury Raid Case.
Instances of alleged outrages cited included:
(a) Raid by “Europeans” 6 armed with revolvers on
Panchajanya Press (the Nationalist newspaper mentioned
above). The press was broken up with large hammers.
Names of some of the alleged raiders were given in the
report.
(b) Beating to death of an old man, the father of a
political “suspect.”
(c) Brutal assault on a woman by three Gurkhas. 6
(d) Flogging of the biggest boys in two schools by police
under British officers. The boys selected were said to be
those who wore Gandhi caps.
By this time the Chittagong disturbance, though dis-
missed as a “communal riot” by the English papers both
in India and the British Isles, had assumed grave political
importance in Bengal among Indians and thoughtful
Englishmen. A pamphlet on Chittagong was prepared
by Christopher Ackroyd, Professor of History at St. Paul s
College, Calcutta, and circulated to the members of the
Calcutta Missionary Conference. As a result of this pamphlet
a resolution was passed by the Conference on October
3th, 193 c regretting disquieting reports of the Chittagong
riots and their effects on public opinion , also asking for an
“independent inquiry.”
An attack was made on Ackroyd almost immediately
in the Statesman of October 1 ith and in the London Observer
'25 2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the following day. It is perhaps worth noting that the main
case against Ackroyd was based on his alleged obstruction
of the police in their duties. A student had been arrested in
St. Paul’s College on October 2nd in a political dacoity case.
When the police searched his room the following day,
Ackroyd and Dr. Bridge (the college Principal) challenged
ii policeman as to why he was carrying with him a piece
of blood-stained cloth. 7 As the policeman was unable to explain
this piece of cloth , it was marked by the college authorities
to the effect that it was not found among the student’s
possessions. For this “interference” the college authorities
had been threatened with prosecution by the British Police
( Imnmissioncr of Calcutta. The incident is instructive in
helping us to understand the meaning of the word “ dis-
loyalty ” in India. :
Ackroyd left India on November 19th, his position
having been made impossible by the Statesman and the
Kuropean Association. St. Paul’s College is dependent on a
< Jovernment grant. The Chittagong affair came to the
fore again on February i8th, 1932, when, in answer to ques-
tions in the Bengal Legislative Council, Mr. W. D. R.
Ih entice officially admitted that two parties of military
police, each under a British officer , visited two schools on
August 31st, 1931, as stated in the non-official report, and
(lint
" Two boys of the Patiya School and eighteen of the
Knhatali School were chastised. Boys of the higher
I lasses at the Saroatali School were chastised. No teacher
a (pears to have been chastised .” 8
Mr. Prentice made no attempt to explain or justify the
mazing conduct of the military police, and in reply to a
I I cssion of further questions as to the nature of the
Itnstiscment, etc., merely replied, “I have nothing to add.” 9
The other members of the Bengal Government seem to
HVr been of the same opinion as Mr. Prentice; for they, too,
.id noil ling to add. They refused to publish the report of the
(ini committee on the Chittagong disturbance , as they said it
.in not of public interest. A further sidelight on the
nvri nmenl’a attitude to information may be found in
i' following extract from the Ihngul Emergency Powers
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
253
Ordinance (Clause 13, sub-clauses 1 and 2), which enforced
the following provisions among others in the Chittagong
District:
“No person shall communicate any information regarding
the military and police forces. If any newspaper publishes
any such information the owner, publisher, editor, and
printer of such newspaper shall be held liable for such
publication.”
The Secretary of the Indian Journalist’s Association
enquired from the Government as to the exact application
or this ordinance. Might papers report clashes between
the police and the public? Might they report injuries,
arrests, searches, oifences, quartering of troops or punitive
police on" towns or villages? The Chief Secretary of the
Bengal Government (Mr. W. S. Hopkins) replied in a letter
dated Calcutta, December 19th, 1931, as follows:
“Government are not prepared to give a ruling on the
cases referred to in your letter. . . . The Commissioner
of the Chittagong Division has full authority to pass lor
publication any news items that he thinks fit, and Govern-
ment do not intend to interfere with his discretion in
the matter,
“It is understood that the Commissioner has already
made satisfactory arrangements for the release of news
items for the Press.”
Like the Government he represented, this Commissioner
was evidently to be his own law, his own judge, his own
critic, and his own censor. We may rest assured that he
passed for publication such facts and such comments
regarding his own regime “as he thought fit.” 1 ®
One last point is worth noting in connection with Chitta-
gong. The late Mr. J. M. Sen Gupta was a well-known
Indian barrister who was a member of the non-official
committee. During his stay in England in the winter o
1931-32 he had been active in drawing attention to this
affair. 11 and on his return to his country Mr. Sen Gupta
was arrested before he had even left^the boat at Bombay.
He was sent to join some 1,000 other political prisoners
2 rj,j THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
whom the Government had incarcerated without the
formality of a trial; and Indians naturally assumed that his
exceptionally hasty arrest was not altogether unconnected
with his interest in the Chittagong enquiry. His death
lias since relieved the Government of its fears.
This story of the so-called Chittagong Riots aptly illus-
trates the complete unreliability of the common and frequent
accounts of communal strife in India, which adorn the
British Press. There arc in British India over 176,000,000
Hindus and nearly 66,000,000 Mohammedans, two com-
munities which constitute between them the great majority
of the population. 12 To assume that these two communities
live perpetually in a state of suspended conflict would be to
reject completely the evidence of all the mass movements
since the War in which they have worked side by side.
Nevertheless real communal riots (as distinct from fictitious
ones such as that which we have examined) are not
unknown in India; and though they are strictly localised
in extent they deserve serious examination. 13
Anti-Indian propaganda lias so stressed the variety and
antagonisms of Indian races and religions that it is difficult
even to approach the problem without prejudice. The
assumption made is that all these divisions make it necessary
for the British to rule India: a conclusion which is as valid
as the argument that the Americans should rule Europe
(including Great Britain) because Europeans have never
been able to live at peace. Or that New York, where as
many languages are to be found as there are in the whole
of India, is therefore unfit for democratic institutions. 14
India is a country as large as Europe minus Russia;
and in modern India the greatest mass movement in history
is attempting a synthesis of interests that will enable it to
throw off a foreign yoke and stabilise its position as an
independent and united state. 16 It is an example from
which Europe itself might well profit. It will prove no easy
achievement; but the serious difficulties in the way are
being systematically and successfully tackled by the Indian
National Congress. Of these the problem of caste and the
Hindu-Moslem question are by far the most formidable.
Evidence is not lacking that in the period which follows
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
255
the Mughal conquest of India there was a growing harmony
between Hindu and Mohammedan— a fact to which
reference has already been made. Wars were not infrequent
but they were not religious wars, such as Europe was at
that very time experiencing. To-day, though it would not
be true to say that religious riots are a common phenomenon
(considering the size of the country and the limited areas
involved in riots), they are undoubtedly more common
than they were two hundred years ago. It is the view o
the vast majority of Indians that the responsibility for this
state of affairs lies with the British Government.
The policy of Divide and Rule may be traced throughout
the British connection with India. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald
spoke of the “Suspicion that sinister influences have been
and are at work on the part of the Government; that
Mohammedan leaders have been and are inspired by certain
British officials.” 16 This did not prevent Mr. MacDonald
in later years from employing precisely the same methods
in his two administrations as premier of a Labour Govern-
ment. The admission of this policy is, however, rare among
present-day statesmen; for what was accepted in the
eighteenth century as a normal tactic is to-day considered
too embarrassing for open reference. 17 Earlier adminis-
trators, such as Elphinstone, openly declared that their
policy was that of Rome. 1 8
The ways in which this policy operates are various.
There is in the first place the use of troops and police. In
times of emergency Hindu districts are occupied by Mos cm
forces and vice versa. This is a very obvious precaution on the
part of the Government, which is afraid that the natural
sentiments of the Indian mercenaries may at any time re-
assert themselves. Thus in the Bardoli Satyagraha movement
of 1928 (the peasants there being mainly Hindus) the
Government almost immediately replaced Hindu officials
by Mohammedans 19 and brought in Pathan tribesmen for
all its more brutal work. 2 ® On the other hand, in the Nor t -
West Frontier Province ( which is over 90 per cent Moslem)
Hindu troops are commonly used to suppress any risings,
a famous example being the employment of the Garhwah
Rifles to fire on an unarmed crowd in Peshawar in the
T HE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
256
Spring of 1930. On that occasion the mutiny of the Garh-
walis, who refused to fire on tlieir helpless countrymen,
probably gave the Government a bigger shock than the
entire Civil Disobedience Movement had occasioned. 21
The Amritsar massacre of 1919, when General Dyer fired
continuously into a crowded space from which he had
blocked up the only outlet, was actually perpetrated by
Gurkhas (Nepalese troops from over the border) who alone
could be trusted to fire on a mixed crowd of Hindus,
Moslems and Sikhs. 22
The second method by which the Governments policy
operates is closely analogous to the first, but applies almost
exclusively to the large towns, particularly Bombay, where
it lias had most success. It is a method of exploiting poverty
and industrial struggles. Not infrequently a careful reading
even of the garbled accounts in an English newspaper will
show that a much advertised “Communal riot” was in fact
.1 fight between mill workers (both Hindu and Moham-
medan) and Pathans, the latter being men brought hundreds
of miles to break strikes. 23 The high tension common to
such a situation is thus given a communal colouring and
tapidly becomes what it is intended to become — a Ilindu-
M oslem vendetta, demonstrating the “necessity” for British
rule and dividing its enemies. 24
'fhe third method is one which hits little real importance
in India, but its value to the Government in its propaganda
m England and America is enormous. This is the method
.1 1 ready indicated in the quotation from MaDconald — the
purchase of leaders, not necessarily by direct bribes, but by
1 he offer of office and privilege. The Morley-Minto and
Mont ague -Chelmsford “reforms” represent successive stages
by which the Government has sought to strengthen its
alliance with the Indian landlords and to detach the Indian
industrialists from the nationalist movement. These “move-
ments towards self-government and democracy” (of which
the Government of India Act is the most recent example)
ire in actual fact simply attempts to undergird British
imperialism by a strong alliance with the most conservative
e lements in the country.
The bearing of this on the Hindu-Moslem problem lies
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS 257
chiefly in the system of “communal representation.”
In favouring certain classes the Government took care
that even those classes should be divided. Hindu and
Moslem vote in separate electorates; and in the allocation
of the spoils of office between wealthy Hindus and wealthy
Moslems the latter are given special treatment. The late
Sir Valentine Chirol, a former editor of the Times of India ,
admitted that this policy, inagugrated in the Morley-Minto
Reforms, “served to widen the breach between Moham-
medans and Hindus at the very moment when India was
entering on a new stage of political development.
Such a division of interest between the privileged classes
would clearly have no meaning to the mass of Hindus and
Mohammedans who have been hitherto unenfranchised
and gained nothing either way. 26 But it brought into being
powerful organisations professing to represent the two
great communities, and it has suited the Government ever
since to recognise such organisations as the Hindu Maha-
sabha and the Muslim League in the capacity of true
representative bodies. We have thus the paradoxical
situation in which Congress, in 1930, was defying the
Government with the united support of about 9® per cent,
of the population of all communities whilst the Aga Khan, 27
Dr. Moonje, and Dr. Ambedkar were co-operating with the
Government as “representatives” of the Moslems, the
Caste Hindus and the “Untouchables.” The situation
would have been amusing but for the fact that the entire
British daily press entered into this conspiracy and con-
tinually advertised the princes, landlords and others whom
the Viceroy had nominated to attend the Conference as “delegates”
of the Indian people.
The fourth and last method which must be noted is
closely connected with the third. It is the deliberate
instigation of riots by Government agents provocateurs , to
which Colonel Osburn drew attention in his book Must
England Lose India ? The evidence in this case is too detailed
to be dealt with here and in the nature of the case a great
deal of it can never be confirmed because of its secret and
unofficial character. 28 Few Indians have any belief in the
“justice” of British law-courts, and however these may
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
»,V !
inclion in ordinary civil cases it is clear that as they are
limiselves part of the imperial system, they can hardly
r expected to deal impartially with accusations of this
nil. If even a few of the innumerable stories told in India
v reliable persons both English and Indian are true, then
lit" secret agents of the police have often been responsible
it outrages upon Hindu or Moslem religious sentiment,
■•signed to set the two communities at variance. And if
liry are true it is because Lord Elphinstone’s policy is still
ring carried out; which is itself a sufficient reason why
ho British magistrate or Indian magistrate under British
i'll It' would dare to let the matter be judicially exposed. 29
There is, however, a more indirect and at the same time
n more obvious way in which the agents provocateurs are
known to work; and of this the riots in Bombay during the
year 1932 were a terrible example. In this town, whilst
nil Congress and Nationalist organisations were suppressed
nud their “volunteers” imprisoned or assaulted by the
lolice, one organisation was permitted to train its volunteer
1 Membership openly. This was a Moslem organisation
under the leadership of Shaukat Ali, one of those Moslem
( lommunalist leaders to whom reference has already been
made. Shaukat Ali, after a series of inflammatory speeches
and articles in the Daily Khilafat directed against the
I longress (which he, like the Government, pretended to be
a “Hindu” organisation), picked a quarrel with the Hindus
which resulted in a serious riot. Though very few people
participated actively in the chaos that followed, the injury
In life and property was considerable. Meanwhile the
1 lovernment, quick to meet nationalist risings with martial
law and a reign of terror, remained little more than a
•. pec tat or of the disorder, which often continued for days on
end in spite of the small number of people involved. 30
As to the leader-writers in Fleet Street, they shed more
crocodile tears in six weeks over this affair than had flowed
down their cheeks for years. 31
The next aspect of the Hindu-Moslem conflicts which
requires attention is its economic background. The position
nf the Jews in parts of Europe and America, or of the
Armenians in Turkey, may help us to understand this
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS ’
259
Indian problem, which anti-Semitism in the East End has
brought even nearer to us. It is not simply a difference
of race or religion that leads to anti-Semitism or Armenian
massacres. Where there is general prosperity it is se om
difficult for people of different race or religion to live at
peace. But let there be poverty, and one race with a lower
standard of living or a higher commercial acumen than
another, and there will be friction that can easily be fanned
into hatred by any interested party.
In India poverty (as Mr. MacDonald has said) “is not an
opinion, it is a fact.” Add to this another fact— that
economic divisions tend to follow lines of caste or sect
and the basis of “ communalism ” is complete. Thus the
Parsees are the great commercial community. The Mar-
waris (among the Hindus) and some of the Pathans (among
the Moslems) are the money-lenders of India. Past conquests
and reconquests or the deliberate policy of the British has
mapped out the land in such a way that Moslem peasantry
may be found under a Hindu prince or landlord, while
Hindus may be tenants of Moslem zemindars.
A little careful reading even of an English newspaper
will often show how a “Hindu-Moslem riot” was in actual
fact an economic struggle, tinged or inflamed by religious
sentiment, but rooted ultimately in the gnawing hunger
of the peasantry, for which British rule itself is chiefly
responsible. Here, for example, is an exceptionally honest
official communique on some riots in Sind which was
published in the Midland Daily Telegraph .* 32
“The population of the village is almost entirely
Mohammedan, with a small section of Hindu money-
lenders and traders to whom many of the Mohammedans
are indebted. Communal feeling is, therefore, aggravate
by economic causes.”
In Dacca (Bengal) the cause of riots in recent years has
been admitted in our papers to be the same an attack on
Hindu money-lenders by Mohammedan peasantry. Old
Hindu law (before our civilisation supplanted it) limited
the exactions that a money-lender could extort from his
debtor; but in pre-British times there was a better safeguar
2 Go THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
than any law. Dacca was then the centre of the muslin
industry, and world-famous for its trade. There was
then prosperity and no occasion for communal feuds, so
that even as late as 1839 b> r - Taylor was able to write in
his Topography of Dacca :
“Religious quarrels between Hindus and Moham-
medans are of rare occurrence. These two classes live
in perfect peace and concord.”
To-day Dacca exhibits no signs of its ancient wealth and
industry. The people of modern Dacca are among the
poorest in the world’s poorest country; and with poverty
there has come the so-called religious riot.
A similar example is afforded by the following extract
from the Simon Report. It concerns the Moplah Rising of
1921, a favourite example of Indian communalism that is
often found in British propaganda:
“The Moplahs are a sturdy Mohammedan people of
Malabar, on the west coast of the Madras Presidency.
They are mainly the tenants of Hindu landowners, and
from time to time their economic grievances have led
them to resort to violence as a means of redress.” 33
It would surely be difficult to find a more complete
condemnation of the administration than we have here:
an admission that the government which boasts itself
the defender of the rights of the poor should have allowed
such a state of affairs to exist. We may also note that when
the Moplahs (having no other means of protest or redress)
sought to achieve their object by violence, the Government
suppressed them by the same method and left their grievances
unalleviated. 31 This example helps to explain the growing
alliance between the landed interests in India and the
Government, which upholds the claims of the landlord
to the ownership of the soil.
For some lime it has been a sort of stock argument among
British propagandists that if the British left India the
warlike races (especially the Moslems) would over-run the
country, annihilating the peaceful Hindus with fire and
sword. 35 So while we are told at one moment that the
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
261
Moslems are against the Nationalist Movement and on the
side of the Government, a moment later we are informed
that Britain is holding India in order to protect the wretched
and defenceless Hindus from these same Moslems. From
which one is left to conclude that the Hindus are clamouring
to be killed whilst the Moslems are begging the British to
stay and keep them from committing murder.
Thus when the Afridis raided the North-West Frontier
in 1930, most of the British papers pointed out how necessary
it was for the British to remain in India and protect the poor
Indians from these fierce tribesmen. Unfortunately there
were others in Fleet Street who preferred to see in these
raids the treachery and guile of Indian rebels who had
deliberately incited the Afridis to attack the British, on
sequently while touching stories were being told of Indian
families rescued from the raiders by gallant British airmen,
the Daily Herald told us that “sympathy with the raiders
continues to be strong in the city” 38 (Peshawar), while the
Daily Mail Special Correspondent wrote that “these inroads
have for the first time been sympathetically regarded in
British India.” The Daily Mail even published a story of an
officer captured by the Afridis who reported on his release
that “the tribesmen were not fighting for personal gain but
for the Indian Congress and Moslem Movements, and
brought a message from an Afridi chief demanding Gandhi s
release from prison. 37 ,
In its zeal to malign Gandhi and the Indian Nationalists,
the Daily Mail probably got much nearer the truth about
the Afridi raids than did most of the British papers. The
Afridis are Moslems, and over 90 per cent of the population
of the North-West Frontier Province is of the same religion.
Behind the Daily Mail story is the actual fact that the
Moslems of the Province are united with the Moslems
beyond the Border on a very vital point, which is their love
of freedom and dislike of British interference. The Moslems
of the North-West Frontier Province are as much opposed
as any section of the Indian people to British rule *h^
Afridis have to submit to periodic bombing by British
aeroplanes. In such circumstances it is not remarkable
that the Moslems of the Province should be in close sympathy
202 THE WHITE SAHIBS ] N INDIA
with those beyond the Border, and that both should look
for their liberation to the Nationalist Movement.
It was actually the case that after the commencement
of Civil Disobedience in Spring, 1930, notwithstanding
all the forces working for disunity, which we have already
Surveyed, no section of the Indian population took a more
active part in the struggle than these Moslems of the
f rontier. Under the leadership of Abdul Ghaffar Khan
(‘ the Gandhi of the Frontier” as he is called), a vast
Moslem organisation was formed, known by an Urdu
name meaning “Servants of God,” and popularly described
as “Red-Shirts.” This movement was affiliated to the
Congress. So widespread was the success of the Nationalist
Movement in the Frontier Province, and so brutal the
measures by which the Government attempted to suppress
it, that they have found it necessary to exercise a censor-
ship unequalled in its rigidity in any other part of India.
Not only was there the usual muzzling of the Press, pro-
hibition of free speech and censorship of wires, but for the
better part of two years the Province endured a system of
martial law in all but name. Those attempting to investi-
gate the position were either refused admission to the
Province or summarily deported. Reports were destroyed
and their publishers arrested. 38
Any talk of numbers or percentages, so far as Congress
support in India is concerned is, of course, bound to be a
matter of conjecture. The Government itself, with all its
ready assurances that the Congress represents only a small
minority of Indians, has taken very good care that there
shall be no means of ascertaining what really are the
wishes of India’s millions; and it is reasonable to assume
of every despotic Government that it is despotic just because
it dare not face a popular and democratic verdict on its
actions. That is as obvious as the fact that the Govern-
ment in India cultivates secrecy, censorship, and the
distortion of facts because it has everything to lose in
prestige by the truth being known. 39 Nevertheless some
sort of estimate of the Moslem support behind the Congress
is possible, and a few observations on this point may be
worth recording.
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
263
The observations of the present author were summarised
in a memorandum written for the interest of English
friends in 1930; and the following extract from this docu-
ment indicates the character of the Nationalist Movement
as he saw it in i 9 2 9 anc ^ I 93 o:
“I have spent some months of my time in India
travelling with Mr. Gandhi in various parts of India.
I observed— what anyone who has done the same can
confirm— that everywhere Mr. Gandlu went he was
the centre of crowds more vast, more enthusiastic and
better disciplined than any that I had seen in any other
part of the world. Those crowds were not only to be
found in predominantly Hindu parts of the country,
but everywhere without distinction; nor was there
any opposition or counter-demonstration except by
isolated individuals. At Lahore (Christmas, 1929b
when Congress met for its annual session, my English
papers led me to expect that the Moslems (who are in a
majority in the Punjab) and the Sikhs, who form a
powerful minority, would break up the Congress camp^
Instead I saw the Congress president ride at the head
of the most enormous procession I had ever witnessed,
while enthusiastic multitudes of Moslems, Hindus and
Sikhs lined the roads and crowded the roofs, windows,
walls and ail available vehicles. The only opposition
consisted of six Sikhs with a banner, who departed
when politely spoken to by a Congress volunteer.
, Throughout the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930
similar scenes were to be observed all over India. And if
to-day the unparalleled ferocity of the police has put an
end to much of this public demonstration, it only means
that the movement has been driven underground, and not
by any means that It has been killed-
Among the leaders of the Congress, Moslems have been
numerous and conspicuous. Men such as the late Dr.
Ansari, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Dr. Syed Mahmud and the
late Abbas Tyabji have played a prominent part in the
Movement, in recent years. Moreover, their Moslem
followers gave a bigger quota of Civil Disobedience prisoners
in proportion to the total numerical strength of the Moslems
W>4 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
than any other community except the Parsees. These
Moslem Nationalists have the support of the Jamiat-ul~
Ulema , an All-India body of Moslem divines, and their
organisation (the Nationalist Muslim Party) proved itself
in 1030 by far the most powerful Moslem organisation
in India, enrolling over 100,000 “volunteers ” during the
period of Civil Disobedience. Needless to say this organi-
sation was entirely ignored -by those who nominated the
" Delegates” to the Round Tabic Conference and attempted
to create the impression that Indian Moslems were repre-
sented by such persons as the Aga Khan. Similarly the
decision of the All-Parties Sikh Conference on November
113rd, 1930, to support the Congress programme was
unnoticed in the British Press.
“I am telling you God’s truth,” said Gandhi in one of
his speeches in England, “when I say that the Communal
question does not matter and should not worry you at all.” 40 .
It sounds like an exaggeration; but considered in relation
to the far greater issues before India, upon which the
solution of the Hindu-Moslem question itself depends, the
statement is literally true. A hundred and fifty years of
British rule have done much by deliberate incitement and
I lie increase of poverty to produce friction between Hindu
and Moslem. But side by side with this process, in spite of
itself, the British administration has produced conditions
which must in the end destroy its own work. Foreign rule
may subsist upon the division of the people, but in the end
it produces the unity of national revolt. 41 Poverty may
increase racial or religious conflicts, but in the end it pro-
duces the consciousness of class. It was from the Congress
hospitals, where Hindu and Moslem, caste and outcaste,
lay side by side, victims of the lathi and the bullet, that
Indian Nationalism drew its inspiration in 1930— even when
the police descended upon those hospitals and hurled the
victims of savage and indecent assaults into the streets.
And it will be in the villages and the factories, where Hindus
and Moslems suffer from the same robberies of rent and
interest, that the social revolution will find its strength,
superseding nationalism in the coming years as the spear-
head of Indian liberation and racial unity. 42
265
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
NOTES
1 The Government itself announced the Chittagong disturb ^
a “communal riot" and emphasised this diagnosis by ^issuing an o
in 1Q32 compelling all Hindu youths in certain ls ,, t
to cany identity cards-red, blue and wh.te for “detenues, ■
and innocents respectively ! In 1934 all Hindu m houses for
were, in some parts of Chittagong, forbidden to leave their houses tor
week
3 Bengal Legislative Council Debates j August * 93* *
•The events of March intli, 1935, at Karachi, make an interesting
comparison. On this occasion British troops fired on a Mi^em process^
ill honour of a man who had been hanged. Twenty-seven p o
officially admitted to have been killed and 134 wuntel mi t hit s hn S
(See the Evening New,, October 19th, 1935). a " d Karachi was supposed
0 have been "ived from a massacre" by this wanton murdenYcsolar
were the communities in Karachi from “noting ™ ““Xkmandrf
that the leaders of both Hindus and Moslems whiS
an enquiry. This was (lady refused by the Bombay Government ivh
instead took extraordinary measures to prevent reports of the even
from being published in the Press. . , - T j* a
* For some reason this euphemism is normally employed m Ind
for the British,
* Foreign mercenaries employed by the Government.
•This sort of occurrence is as common in Indiaasthoocnvtty^f
the agents provocates , mentioned later in this chapter and i t _» ^ahmost
as rarely possible to expose it. In Calcutta, however, on ^pril 7*. ■ 93^
an Indian magistrate (Mr. Fazel Karim) did actually fine ^ police
informer for contravening the Explosives Substance Act. The
carrying a bomb to implicate some person in a false charge, and
bomb exploded in a taxi, making prosecution inevitable.
s Bengal Legislative Council Debates, Feb. 1 8th, 1932.
* The Government would only admit that there had bee had
of discipline” on the part of its officials and that 5U1< ' l , ^ , r f tl
been taken against them; but it refused details as to the nature of I U
breaches of discipline.” (Bengal Council Debates, Aug. 6th i93 )
10 The trials of Chittagong by no means ended with this episode. 1 ^
Sentembrr irm, there was another clash this time . .
K mopea rTi nsti n i tc by the remnant of the Indian Terremt or^Uon.
The New, Chronicle of October gjth. ,93lt, anno U nc^ he unpo,ition
of a collective fine of over £6,000 on the inhabitant o Chittagong ana
several neighbouring villages for alleged refusal to betray
1 T[°Sen S Gupta had written a pamphlet, published in London, exposing
the Chittagong affairs and the shooting of defenceless prisoners, in the
detention camp at HijU. __ t i. nf
1 * The total population of British India is near y 255 mi 1 , ^
other communities (Sikhs, Indian Chmt.ans, etc.), c0 “ ' tU ' e u e f nc lu-
small minorities. The total populatmn of the whole country (*•'• “
sive of the Indian Native States) is about 250,000,000, but the peop
of these states are again mainly Hindus and Moslems.
6C
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
1 3
This chapter docs not concern itself with the psychological causes
«> communal tension, which have been ably examined by Dr. Clifford
lanshardt in The I {mdu- Muslim Problem in India. (London, 1936.)
, dt :f ect of this book is its obsession with problems which only affect
the wealthier classes, but it has much useful material.
11 It '. V0llld be , eas y to show that the “riots” between different
communities in Europe in the past 100 years (especially the riot of
in ‘india bCCn Wlfinitely bIootIicr tlian any past or present conflicts
v m Mu . cb ^ as beC ? ™ de of Ind ’ a ’ s “ 222 la nguagcs,” which were given
ide publicity in the Simon Report. Tills was the figure given in the
??\ Jn ■ WU i Cl iad lncreased to 22 5 l»y the year 1931. Some of
jndo ' Chinese languages enumerated to make up this number include
the following, according to the Imperial Gazetteer of India :
Number of
Language
Kabui
Andro
Kasui
Bhranu
Thukuni
Aka . .
Nora
Tairong
Speakers
4
1
1 1
*5
26
26
2
12
Hie 1921 figure was itself almost double the figure given in 1901
when the Census gave the number of Indian languages as 147. The
Burma 6 ^ achieved by lnclud ing every dialect. See Note 39 regarding
1 6 The Awakening of India, by J. R. MacDonald. Lord Olivier, who
uas Secretary of State for India in the Labour Government of 1924,
in credited with a similar statement. Torrens’ Empire in Asia gives a
1 ‘ 71 fu t • account ° r . tbc development of the Divide and Rule policy up
to the time when this book was published, in 1O72.
and Garratf British Rttle in India > b y Thompson
I 6 According t° Major Basu’s Consolidation of the Christian Power in
Wia (Chap. VI), Elphinstone’s view was that u Divide et impera was
(lie old Roman motto, and it should be ours.”
w;lV Slmdarl . y •” No , v l mber ' 933 . when there was "trouble” with the
were used^ 3110 ” ° f r ° 0na ’ troo P s from Baluchistan and the Punjab
10 The Pathans are Moslems and would have been brought 48 hours’
journey from the North-West Frontier of India.
” ^f fUl n r acC ° Untofthe GarhwaIi “Mutiny” is given in Chapter XV.
n „ S i! Ce n C T S i?° ted in 1899 that the Gurkba s "would be
side though all India were against us.” (In India, p. 338).
. . A b.U.P. cable, published in the News-Chronicle (April 4th, 1022)
. a cs that: Bombay dock-strikers to-day attacked a lorry carrying
I ou “"on tl vf m r h T lh u e drivcr to dcath and sct th ' P»tS,ns®
Z4 T-I - e 'i* Po lce . f,rcd on the stnkers and thirty-two were injured.”
■ , 1C i particularly to Bombay, where nearly all the so-called
communal riots have started with fighting between Hindu mill workers
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
267
and Pa than blacklegs* The hungry tribesmen from the hills are naturally
ignorant of the situation in the cities* and when offered work in Bombay
have no idea of the true reason for which they are taken there. Even
the rioting in 1936* though ostensibly on a religious issue, must have
been stimulated by economic conflicts in the past, which inevitably
increased the communal tension. The official Report of the Bombay Riots
Enquiry Committee in ig2g specifically mentioned among the causes the
fact that “the Pathans had taken the places of some of the Oil Installa-
tion strikers/* It also mentioned that “Some of the Pathans are money-
lenders who had advanced money to mill-hands at usurious rates of
interest/* and points out that Pathan money-lenders were raided and
(in one case) their documents destroyed* {See also Hansard \ Feb* i8th,
1929.)
3S For many yean after the Mutiny of 1857 the Government tended
to favour the Hindus, the fear of the Moslems having been revived by
the attempt to restore the Mughal dynasty* The growth of a nationalist
movement among the Hindu majority at the end of last century led
to a reversal of this process; and the Moslem upper classes were given
privileges out of proportion to their numerical strength, in such a way
that no democratic nationalist movement could outbid the Government
in its offers without sacrificing its democratic and national character*
** That is to say, 95 per cent of the Adult population in the past,
and to-day about 70 per cent*
17 According to an article by Mr. C. A* Lyon in the Sunday Express
(Dec* 12th, 1936), the Aga Khan’s claims to distinction include the
fact that “during the war he performed many delicate tasks for the
British Government* He kept the Mohammedans of India loyal all
through when there was much dangerous unrest.” In Egypt he per-
formed a similar office,
SB It is, of course, clear that the agent provocateur is powerless in the
absence of some fundamental cause of strife* An article in Great Britain
and the East (October 22nd, 1936) states this basic proposition clearly
with special reference to the 1936 riots in Bombay: “The riots * * . may
have had many excuses. But they have only one cause* I hat cause is
social and economic. * - . The British Reg has shown one failure after
another* . * * An Indian evil must be attacked with Indian methods*”
This interesting and startling admission from such a source must be
considered in conjunction with the British policy as analysed here and
the outline of economic causes given later in the chapter*
** Two examples of the activities of agents provocateurs were given by
Mr. Verrier Elwin in a circular letter from Poona in 1930* In one case
a C.LD. man endeavoured to incite a peaceful crowd to throw stones
in Bombay* He was recognised and his identity proved. In the other
case a Government agent visited the Principal of a Missionary College
and asked permission to stir up the Moslem students against the
Hindus*
40 Criminals who had been released from jail to make room for
political prisoners joined in these riot3 and increased the disturbance
considerably*
11 The careless mendacity of the press can be illustrated from in-
numerable examples* The News-Chronicle of Aug* 6th, 193°* published
a story under the caption “Hindu Kills Eleven Mohammedans.” In
I II E IV lUrii SAHIBS IN INDIA
n.c- report that followed it appeared that this “Hindu” was “a notorious
® , 1 robber * , ° nc can on| y S ra *P the wild inaccuracy and misleading
luimc of such a report by assuming that a man who happened to have
Urn horn a Methodist killed eleven people who happened to be
/ nr, nans in the course of a highway robbery, and that the whole
> was announced under the heading “Quaker kills Anglicans.”
hc . s . an ? e P a P er on Marth 22nd, 1935, recorded a debate in the Indian
' Kts ativc Assembly regarding the way in whicli the Government had
handled a not m Karachi. “All the elected members,” said the News
\ , fit oracle, together with the Congress members voted for Mr. Gauba’s
'V h,Ic the Nationalists, consisting of Hindus and Sikhs, voted
* Mh tlie Government or remained neutral.” On this it is only necessary
n comment that the Nationalists include Mohammedans as well as
I nidus and Sikhs, that the Congress is itself the biggest Nationalist
poly, and that all Congress members of the Assembly are elected
members (not being Government nominees); and the whole report is
(Irmly senseless. The Daily Express of Feb. 29th, 1932, after providing
m, readers with a lurid picture of the Holy City of Benares, confirmed
In accuracy by announcing that this city (which is on the Ganges) was
"" the North-West Frontier. And so on.
** August 19th, 1930.
1 lie author collected a number of similar press extracts between 1030
tuid 1936, and a careful study of the papers where communal riots have
hrrn referred to will provide the reader with evidence of the same
lino*
Dr. Clifford Manshardt points out that both Hindus and Moslems
1 1 * , monc y at interest, though it is against the religious teachings of
,, ,,tter so - P* c shows how this money-lending comes to have a
1 nmmunal ’significance and instances his personal memory of Hindu
limitation _m Bombay for revenge on the Pa than money-lenders, also
,? r a S Itatlon hy Punjab Moslems against Hindu Danyas. ( The Hindu -
Muslim Problem, pp. 56-58.)
Mr. John Hoy] and in The Case for India (London, 1929, p. ,,2).
im m ions his personal experiences of Muslem money-lenders in Nagpur
ii m I Bombay with reference to communal rioting.
** Simon Report, Part I, p. 249.
1 Dr. Manshardt states that “there is scarcely a grave communal
disturbance m the rural areas in which the thread of economic oppression
1 a 11 not be distinguished in the tangled skein of causes.” (The Hindu
Muslim Problem, p, 54.)
1, 111 \\\ e . famo ^ s chestnut “not a virgin or a rupee would be left in
Jlrngal . is periodically repeated by various authors as an original
Observation, Miss Mayo was of their number ( Mother India , p. ’282)
nud attributed to a Mahratha chief in 1920 the remark which had been
miiibuted forty years previously to a Rajput. Though this Rajput
(■hi lertab Singh) disclaimed the honour of authorship, the orphaned
f|) j gram continues to find numerous fathers*
M Daily Herald, August 14th, 1930.
*’ Daily Mail , August 15th, 1930.
"A Commission of Enquiry into the state of affairs in the North-
, p , ntie f Province was set up by the Congress after the shooting
1 eshawar in April, 1930. Mr. V.J. Patel, ex-President of the Indian
HINDUS AND MOSLEMS
2C9
Legislative Assembly, presided over this Commission. It was refused
permission to enter the Province, but managed to interview witnesses
in spite of this handicap, and published a report which was promptly
confiscated wherever the police could lay hands on it. Mr, Vcrrier
Elwin, who managed to enter the Province two years later (in 1932)
was deported as soon as die Government realised his presence and the
nature of his mission. He was searched with the greatest care, but
saved his notes by an ingenious but simple device which he explained
to the present author. These notes were made the basis of his pamphlet
India : The North-West Frontier. (See Chapter XV.) The author has
in his possession envelopes of this period bearing the Peshawar post-
mark and the official stamp “passed by Censor,” to bear witness to
the Government’s anxiety that no one in England should know what
was happening in the biggest Moslem province of India.
** The hypocrisy of most anti-Indian propaganda on this subject
is illustrated by Mr. Horace Alexander in The Indian Ferment (p. 171).
He points out that in Burma “there is no communal strife, no awkward
native Stales, no caste system or depressed classes . . . and there is a
very widespread system of primary education.” In spite of these facts
even the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were delayed several years
in their application to Burma. To make up for this Burmese deficiency,
the 1921 Census discovered 103 Tibeto-Chinese “languages” in Burma.
These “languages”, which accounted for nearly half the 222 (now 225)
“languages” of India and Burma, included seventeen spoken by less
than 100 persons; thirty-nine spoken by less than 1,000; sixty-five by
less than 10,000 and ninety-one by less than 100,000. The Simon
Report even admitted that “seven-tenths of the whole population . . .
speak Burmese or a closely allied language.” The fact that the same
can be said of Hindustani in India has been discreetly suppressed;
although the 1921 Census Report (Vol. I, Part I, p. 199) states that
“There is no doubt that there is a common element in the main
languages of Northern and Central India which renders their speakers
without any great conscious change in their speech mutually intelligible
to one another, and this common basis already forms an approach to a
lingua franca over a large part of India.” English, on the other hand,
though it is the universal medium of secondary education, is only
spoken by a very small percentage of the population. The language
problem, like communalism, has been magnified out of all proportion
to its importance.
40 It is significant that Mr. Brelvi, the Moslem editor of the Bombay
Chronicle, declared at a meeting of Nationalist Moslems in Bombay that
if Gandhi capitulated to the demands of Moslem communalists,
Nationalist Moslems would fight him on the issue. (New India ,
April 1 6th, 1931.)
41 Professor Moon in Imperialism and World Politics noted the fact
that if no union had existed before between the peoples of India the
British would have provided it, since “antagonism to British rule”
was drawing them together as a nation.
44 In the Trade Union and Workers’ organisations, this prophecy
of Hindu-Moslem unity may already be regarded as a fact. For a
further study of I iindu-MosIem unity and of further facts relating to
communal riots the reader is referred to Brailsford’s Rebel India
(pp. 1 72-5), and Brockway’s Indian Crisis (pp. 171-3).
CHAPTER XIII
THE EVOLUTION OF ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY
Horace Wilson, in His preface to Mill’s History of British
India , has remarked upon the “unrelenting pertinacity”
with which Mill “labours to establish the barbarism of the
Hindus.”
“With very imperfect knowledge, with materials ex-
ceedingly defective, with an implicit faith in all testimony
hostile to Hindu pretensions, he has elaborated a portrait
of the Hindus which has no resemblance whatever to
the original, and which almost outrages humanity. As
he represents them, the Hindus are not only on a par
with the least civilised nations of the Old and New
World, but they are plunged almost without exception
in the lowest depths of immorality and crime. Considered
merely in a literary capacity, the description of the Hindus
in the History of British India is open to censure for its
obvious unfairness and injustice; but in the effects which
it is likely to exercise upon the connexion between
the people of England and the people of India, it is
chargeable with more than literary demerit: its tendency
is evil; it is calculated to destroy all sympathy between
the rulers and the ruled; to preoccupy the minds of those
who issue annually from Great Britain, to monopolize
the posts of honour and power in Hindustan, with an
unfounded aversion towards those over whom they
exercise that power. 1
Wilson was of the opinion that “a harsh and illiberal
spirit has of late years prevailed in the conduct and councils
of the rising service in India, which owes its origin to
impressions imbibed in early life from the History of Mr,
Mill.” 2 This fact was no accident, nor can Mill be debited
with individual responsibility for what was, in point of fact,
a process inherent in the growth of imperialism. Mill
270
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 2 7 1
was simply an outstanding example of an inevitable
phenomenon. 3
The steady growth of race prejudice as a psychological
concomitant of imperialism can best be realised by com-
paring the observations of earlier English commentators
with the obiter dicta of the present-day. Thus Ovington,
writing in 1696, commends the honesty of the East India
Company’s Indian servants. 4 Warren Hastings found the
Hindus “gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of
gratitude for kindness shown them, and less prompted to
vengeance for wrongs inflicted than any people on the face
of the earth.” 6 Hastings no doubt had reason to be grateful
for this fact. Bishop Heber’s tribute of praise was even
stronger; while Elphinstone found the villagers every-
where amiable, affectionate to their families, kind to their
neighbours and towards all but the government honest
and sincere.” 6
Elphinstone even went so far as to claim that there was
less crime in India than in England, not excluding the
activities of the Thugs and Dacoits. The most depraved
Hindus according to him were “the dregs of our own great
towns.” Sir John Malcolm, in more qualified terms, found
Hindus no worse than other people, though in the early
days of British rule there seem to have been frank admissions
by our officials that the national character was deteriorating
under foreign domination. “The longer we possess a pro-
vince, the more common and grave does perjury become/
was the opinion of one authority, 7
Even in Elphinstone’s time signs were not lacking that a
new generation of British administrators was coming into
being, which had neither the intimate knowledge nor the
frankness of the Company’s earlier servants.
“Englishmen in India,” wrote Elphinstone, have
less opportunity than might be expected of forming
opinions of the native character. Even in England, few
know much of the people beyond their own class, and
what they do know, they learn from newspapers and
publications of a description which does not exist in
India. In that country also, religion and manners put
bars to our intimacy with the natives, and limit the
2 ?2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
number of transactions as well as the free communi-
cation of opinions. We know nothing of the interior
of families but by report, and have no share in those
numerous occurrences of life in which the amiable parts
of character are most exhibited.” 5
Prejudice had already reached formidable proportions
by the time that Mill wrote his History of British India.
Max Muller points out that Mill was chiefly guided by
Dubois, a French missionary, and certain other selected
authorities, “all of them neither very competent nor very
unprejudiced judges,” 9 Not content with this, Mill “omits
the qualifications which even these writers felt bound to give
to their wholesale condemnation of the Hindus.” Mill
began the fashion among subsequent British historians of
attributing almost all Hindu habits or practices to some mean
or despicable motive, and dismissing all Hindu culture
with contempt. Thus, for example, of the Hindus’ alleged
“litigiousness” 10 he writes that
“As often as courage fails them in seeking more daring
gratification to their hatred and revenge, their malignity
finds a vent in the channel of litigation.” 11
Mill was probably the first English writer to popularise
the idea that Hindus are by nature dishonest and untruthful.
Ignoring such evidence as we have already noted on this
subject, lie cites the views of “exceptionable witnesses,”
as Wilson calls them, “the missionaries by their calling and
Orme and Buchanan by their prejudices.” 12 He proves
the prevalence of perjury in the courts, but gives no indi-
cation, as his editor points out, that:
“The form of oath imposed — the taking of an oath
at all, was so repulsive to the feelings of respectable
Hindus, that they have ever avoided as much as possible
giving evidence at all; and their place has been supplied
by the lowest and most unprincipled, whose testimony
has been for sale.” 13
So horrible is Mill’s picture of the Hindus that those who
credit it may well wonder how such a race survived at all. 14
The wildest observations pass for judgment. “A Brahmin,”
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 2^3
writes Mill, for example (quoting from an eighteenth century
authority) “may put a man to death when he lists : a
statement which is, and always has been, a lie.
In spite of the experience of Indian hospitality which
has been the common lot of those who have lived among
Indians on a basis of equality, 16 Mill finds European wit-
nesses prepared to deny even this virtue to the Hindus.
His evidence in this case is mainly the “inhospitality of
the people to their English conquerors. Even Hindu
music, to which no particular political significance could
be attached, is dismissed by Mill in a single paragraph with
the remark that “all Europeans, even those who are most
disposed to eulogise the attainments of the Hindus, unite
in describing the music of that people as unp leasing and
void both of expression and art.” 1 ®
This last example from the writings of Mill brings us to
the point where the cultural gulf is discernible between
the Indian people and those who are their interpreters
to the British public. Apart from the untruth of the state-
ment that “all Europeans” shared such a preposterous
opinion, it is clear that this dismissal of Indian music is
comparable to the use of the word “gibberish” for a lan-
guage one cannot understand. Mill’s attitude, so blatantly
exposed in this statement, was to become the criterion of
orthodoxy in future English writers.
From a passage already quoted it will be observed that
Wilson considered the evidence of missionaries as “exception-
able.” FJphinstone appears to have had the same view,
in that he held them to be among those who “do not see
the virtuous portion of a nation.” 17 After 1813* with the
extension of Christian missions, missionary evidence of a
violently prejudiced character became extremely common,
and the views of these interested parties were all too readily
accepted as “Gospel Truth.” There are to-day some
5,000 missionaries in India, representing over a hundred
“different abominations,” as an Indian Christian once called
them; and with a few notable exceptions their influence
on Anglo-Indian cultural relations is activated as much by
political bias as it is by a Christian contempt for rival
religions. The connection between these two aspects of
! «74 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
missionary interests was stressed at the annual meeting' of
(lie British and Foreign Bible Society in 1932, when the
report for the past year revealed that:
Outside the areas where a Godless communism
predominated there was no evidence that people were
I less ready to acquire the Scriptures.” 18
Ihe revolt of 1857 greatly sharpened the cleavage
between the conqueror and the conquered. After 1858
n ° Indian could become a gunner in the Indian Army,
(lie artillery being kept as a British preserve to safeguard
against a second mutiny. Until the last year of the Great
War no Indian officer could command British troops, and
however high he might rise in the Service he was regarded
as the junior of a British subaltern. It was clear that by
degrees the new civilisation was adapting itself to the caste
system; and whilst its Indian prototype decayed, this new
rigidity of class distinctions hardened even the existing
barriers within the British community. 19 No one without
visiting the country could believe how profound is the
gulf which separates an English commercial traveller
from the humblest member of the “Heaven-born” I.C.S. 20
Nourished in this atmosphere the Provincial and Central
Secretariats “developed” (to quote an ex-editor of the
fifties of India) the usual tendency ol all powerful bureau-
cracies to believe in their own infallibility.” 21 Even Queen
Victoria commented upon the “ snobbish and vulgar over-
hearing and offensive behaviour of many of our Civil and
Political Agents.” Her instructions to Lord Curzon, the
somewhat inappropriate instrument of this intended change
o( policy, were that the people of India must be made to
"feel that we are masters, but it should be done kindly
and not offensively, which alas! is so often the case.” 22
I hese good intentions proved powerless to produce a
really refined and well-bred imperialism. By the end of the
nineteenth century the British in India had for the most
part given up every attempt to understand the people
over whom they ruled, though this did not impede their
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 275
determination to carry on the good work. G. W. Stevens,
who held that a Westerner could never understand the
Hindu mind, was quite clear that British rule was indis-
pensable. Yet he realised that “the new generation of
Anglo-Indians is deplorably ignorant of the native
languages” 23 and that after a dozen years in the country
the average British administrator could not converse with
a peasant or read his language. 2 *
“Of the life, character and habits of thought of the
peasantry — always concealed by Orientals from those in
authority over them — the knowledge grows more and
more extinct year by year. Statistics accumulate and
knowledge decays. The longer we rule over India the
less we know it.” 26
The barriers of ignorance and fear produced in the
Ruling Race a neurosis of racial hatred, comparable only
to the anti-Semitic complex of Fascist Germany. This is
no appropriate place in which to examine the individual
expressions of sadism directed against Indians by the
officer class, but a detailed account of several cases will be
found in an excellent book by Lt.-Colonel Osburn. 25
It is the contention of this author that the British public
school system is largely responsible for the revolting
brutalities which he describes; and this hypothesis can very
well be integrated with our general conclusions regarding
the cultural products of imperialism.
Whilst prejudice and ignorance were becoming the
dominant characteristics of the “Men on the Spot,”
ignorance and indifference were equally obvious in the
attitude of the British public. There is the sharpest contrast
between the speeches of Burke in the eighteenth century
and those of Macaulay in the nineteenth, though each
represented liberal thought in his own generation. 2 7
The people of India had become, in the jargon of Macaulay ,
“a race debased by three thousand years of despotism and
priestcraft.” 20 And the very speech in which these words
occur was made to a half empty House of Commons which
was laying down the whole future of India in the Charter
Act of 1833 —
276 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
! ‘a circumstance which may surprise those who are not
aware that on a Wednesday, and with an Indian question
on the paper, Cicero replying to Hortensius would hardly
draw a quorum.” 2 ®
Reference has already been made to this indifference
among British politicans to the fate of the Indian people,
unless commercial interests arc seriously threatened.
“Parliament eases its conscience,” wrote John Dickinson
over eighty years ago, “by exhorting those that govern
there to govern paternally, just as Isaak Walton exhorts
his angler, in hooking a worm, to handle him as if he loved
him.” 30 With that excellent precept Parliamentary re-
sponsibility ends; and the concern of the British public
is even less. As for the intelligentsia, “The mention of the
word ‘India’ is guaranteed to empty the smallest lecture-
hall in Oxford.” 31
Dimly the Englishman has been made to realise that
India is something valuable which “we” must keep at all
costs. This conception of a national “we,” having some
common interest in owning India, is accurately expressed
by A, E. Duchesne in Democracy and Empire . Britain, he
says,
“has need of India. If it had not been for India the
British Empire had never been, nt any rate, in its present
form. India has supplied from Elizabeth’s reign onward,
precisely that stimulus of which our country has stood in
need. To the desire to reach India is due maritime
enterprise and discovery. To the struggle to obtain
India is due our naval and military supremacy as against
Holland and France. To our trade with India is due
much of our past and present prosperity and wealth.
Without India, Lancashire were bankrupt. To our
retention of India is due our present Imperial prestige.
To our training in and by India is due our practical
sagacity in administration.”
Meanwhile every effort has been made to create a similar
hypnosis among the Indian peoples themselves. The
Government knows as well as the Brahmin priesthood how
to exploit superstition; and its wealth and power are used
for this end. Sometimes, of course, appalling errors of
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLtfTlON 277
judgment are perpetrated. Edward Thompson quotes the
example of the Message of King Edward VII, of a hig
humorous quality,” which was sold in India ' by a master*
stroke of unconscious humour” on His, Masters Voice
records. 32
Probably more successful in their effects were the leaflets
issued by the Government of the Central Provinces when
the Prince of Wales visited India in 1921. These leaflets
explained in the vernacular that:
“according to the Hindu Scriptures, the King’s Son was
a part of God, therefore all Hindu boys should fulfil
their religion by assembling to chccr the Prince o
Wales.”
These leaflets were distributed to schools in the provinces,
including a Mission High School whose headmaster, in
the letter quoted above, mentions that they were “printed
at the taxpayers’ expense in a year of scarcity. 33 Th e
object, of course, was to break the Congress boycott of the
Prince’s tour. ^ ,
Among less official activities the curious student will lina
the most astonishing expression of the same inspiration.
There is still extant, for example, a report of a meeting held
at Grosvcnor House on July 11th, 1883* in furtherance o
a proposal to translate into the various languages of India
the National Anthem of this country, with some additiona
verses excelling the original in their beauty. The present
author came across what may have been one of these trans-
lations in an Indian hymn-book, issued in the Central
Provinces by the Society of Friends, Most of the literary
efforts in this specimen were vernacular translations o
familiar Evangelical doggerel, and they were even set to
those solid chapel melodies which displease the Indian ear
as much as Hindu music displeased Mr. Mill.
Culturally the net effect of the British occupation has been
aptly summed up by Graham Wallas in Human Society .
“Athens, during the last quarter of the fifth century
b.c., was not well governed; and if the British Empire
had then existed, and if Athens had been brought within
278 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
it, the administration would undoubtedly have been
improved in some important aspects. But one does not
like to imagine the effect on the intellectual output
of the fifth century b.c., if even the best of Mr. Rudyard
Kipling’s public school subalterns had stalked daily
through the agora, snubbing, as he passed, that intolerable
bounder, Euripides, or clearing out of his way the prob-
ably seditious group that were gathered around
Socrates.” 34
Education itself is largely an emasculating process in
India. Its origin was not the indigenous system to which
we have referred in a previous chapter, but the needs of
lire East India Company. Speaking of India ninety-
five years ago Sir Claude Hill said: “A prime necessity at
that time was the furnishing of clerks capable of doing the
work in a manner which would be satisfactory to the English
Board of Directors.” 35 More grandiloquently the con-
temporary sponsor of this policy explained himself in words
which every educated Indian remembers:
“We must at present do our best to form a class who
may be interpreters between us and the millions we
govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour but
English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” 36
The ultimate effect of this policy, as we have observed,
was the creation of a class of unemployed intellectuals
which formed the original nucleus of the nationalist move-
ment. 37 Its more immediate results were entirely disastrous.
While the primary education of the millions was completely
neglected, a dc-nationalised minority was brought into
being, for which secondary schools and colleges were
provided; and here the culture and political prejudices of
the ruling race were carefully fostered. The control of the
Press and the banning of enlightened literature completed
the process.
The English language is the basis of this educational
system, and while the history and literature of his own
country arc largely forgotten the Indian school-boy is fed
on Shakespeare and taught to glory in British military
achievements. 38 “Ronald Ross,” writes Mr. Brailsford,
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 279
“has drawn a mordant picture of a class of children, all
with enlarged spleens, struggling to learn by rote a table of
the Plantagenet Kings.” 39 Of the schools among the
primitive tribes Mr. Verricr Elwin writes:
“When the aboriginal does go to school, and that is
seldom, he all too often is made obsequious and servile^
His spirit is crushed. He learns to respect Brahmins and
policemen, but he is not taught how to hold his head
high.” 10
It is no wonder that the Census Report should say of
these same people that there is “no sign among the peasants
of the Central Provinces of a love of education for the sheei
pleasure it brings.” Commenting upon this statement Mr.
Elwin tells us that “wherever education is made pleasurable,
the peasants love it.” 41 Yet when Elwin attempted to bring
this sort of education to the Gonds he found himself barred
on every side by a united front consisting of the Government
of an Indian State, the local landlords and the British
Government’s Forest Department. 4 2 In all villages con-
trolled by these three authorities Elwin was forbidden to
open schools, though the Census figures show that only four
out of every i ,000 Gonds are literate. Had he been a money-
lender, as he points out, he would have been “given every
possible facility by everyone.”
Since 1921 education has been under the control ot
Indian Ministers and a small advance has been made.
The Simon Report mentions that these Indian Ministers
“succeeded to a heritage by no means inspiring” andjefers
to their “impetuous advances” occasioned by their
almost feverish anxiety to improve it. But the proper tic<
classes enfranchised by the Montagu-Ghelmsford Re orm.-.
had neither the will to create a real system of popular
education nor the control of adequate funds, most o t c
Budget being ear-marked by the Government for better
purposes, such as the army. 4 4 In the four Provinces where
resolutions demanding compulsory education were passcc
in the legislatures the funds placed at iheir disposa y t k.
Provincial Governments proved inadequate to implement
this intention. 46
280 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
There has even been a decline between 1921 and 1931
in the proportion of pupils at primary schools as compared
with those at secondary schools; and the Census Report
of 1931 points out that nearly gj crores of rupees are spent
annually on secondary education compared with less than
7 crores on the primary schools, 46 The Census Commissioner
estimates that two-thirds of the Indian villages to-day have
no schools, and his explanation for this state of affairs is
completely unconvincing when it is compared with the
pre-British state of education or the condition of some of
the better governed Indian States, where the more en-
lightened princes have shown the possibilities of popular
education, Burma, as the Census demonstrates, is the
exception to the rule. Out of every 1 ,ooo Burmese over the
age of five years, 368 are literate — that is to say, nearly
37 per cent of the population, compared with the average
of 10 per cent in British India. Comparative Provincial
figures are : 1 1 . 1 per cent in Bengal, 10.8 per cent in Bombay,
5.5 per cent in the United Provinces and 5.3 per cent in
Bihar and Orissa. But, as the Census Commissioner points
out:
“Burma is, of course, exceptional, as most of her
literacy is obtained in her village monasteries and not
through the Education Department.” 47
• With these facts in mind it is interesting to read an
article which appeared in a recent number of Great Britain
and the East. The author notes the discrepancy between the
present state of India and the description of India in the
early nineteenth century, as given by Sir Thomas Munro.
He finds “a consensus of well-informed opinion that will
admit that in many respects India enjoyed then a greater
measure of prosperity than she can now lay claim to.” Of
the education system he says that it
“is completely divorced from national life. . . - Its
end is a clerkship and for this is required an automatic
man. . . . The lot of the primary school teacher is
not an enviable one. He is wretchedly paid, often with
a coolie’s wage: he is closely circumscribed with govern-
ment restrictions.” 4 8
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 28 1
This writer is of the opinion that “since Indian ministers
have been responsible for education in the Provinces
notable strides have been made.” But he also realises that
“there must be a return, certainly in the primary stages,
to education based upon Indian vernacular inspiration.
The new educational system which this article puts for-
ward as an ideal “must take, as its pattern, the village school
of the pre-British era.” It is to be a system in which is
fostered the idea of the welfare of the panchyat. ^ But it is
precisely such a system which has become impossible under
a centralised bureaucracy and will be equally unattainable
under the new constitution. Nor is this an accident, for
it is an integral aspect of the psychological basis of empire
that the mass of the people should be ignorant and apathetic
And this principle, as we have already seen, applies equally
to those who are governed and to the great majority of the
“ruling race.” .
There is, of course, no lack of “uplift” work, m which
both the Government and the missionaries participate.
A book on the subject by a British official named Brayne,
which has received considerable publicity, explains the
necessity of conferring upon the villagers such benefits
as window-boxes, knitting, football, rounders, lace-making,
trousers, and books on beetles and butterflies which kind
people can send from England. Mr. Brayne believes in
teaching the villagers to sing “Home Sweet Home and
discourages the peasant women from the unseemly occu-
pations of grinding corn and making dung-cakes for fuel.
Not unnaturally such a programme received the official
blessings of such high authorities as Sir Basil Blackett,
and Village Uplift became a popular sport. Mr. Verrier
El win gives an entertaining account of the visit of an
Uplift Committee, “ their coming heralded by police invad-
ing our villages , and beating a peasant to force him to
prepare comforts for Uplift Committee members. A
meeting was later addressed by the Uplifters “now well-fed
with food taken free of charge from half-starving villagers,
the speeches consisting entirely of superfluous advice and
information. 61
282
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
However, as Mr. Brayne admits, the villager “will not
be persuaded by those whom he has not leant to trust,”
and he remains fortunately deaf to the voice of Uplift.
Missionaries “with their cars and big houses” impress him
as little. 62 But while the hybrid culture of Anglo-India
has had little attraction for the villager, his own culture
has been effectively destroyed by our political and economic
system. The prophetic words of Elphinstone have proved
to be true “that we have dried up the fountains of native
talent, and that from the nature of our conquest, not only
all encouragement to the advancement of knowledge
is withdrawn, but even the actual learning of the nation
is likely to be lost and the productions of former genius to
be forgotten.” 53
With ignorance prejudice is equally fostered. We have
already observed how ■ prejudice is cultivated between
Hindu and Moslem to create and maintain disunion among
the Indian people. The final concern of this chapter is
with the operation of propaganda in Britain as a means of
maintaining those illusions of “superiority” which divide
the white from the coloured workers. 54
The most popular illusion is, of course, the idea that
British rule is earnestly desired by the people of India.
So carefully is this cultivated that a friend of the present
author who was broadcasting from Bombay found an
expression of the profound loyalty of the people tagged on
to the end of his address by the official censor of his manu-
script. Sir Michael O’Dwyer would even have us believe
that after the horrors ofjalianwala Bagh and the Crawling
Order the people of Amritsar expressed their gratitude to
him for the slaughter of their kinsmen and the honour of
being made to crawl on their bellies. According to Sir
Michael a deputation came to Government House expressly
to inform him that the people in the city, who had formerly
imagined the British soldiers were devils, had now “found
them to be angels.” 6 5 Pope Gregory himself was not more
flattering than these grateful victims.
Next there is the general degradation of the Indian
people. Miss Mayo, who had already done yeoman service
to American imperialism by vilifying the Philippine
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 283
Islanders, 55 produced in Mother India a pornographic classic
which has become almost a text-book of anti-Indian
propaganda. The picture of India which such books give
to the British public — and, indeed, to the world at large
is too well-known to need description here; but a few
comments may serve to show how completely and with
what malice that picture has distorted the facts.
The treatment of women in Hindu society provides
probably the most fruitful field for Mayoesque propaganda.
No rational person pretends that in this, or in any other
aspect of Indian life, the present state of affairs is satisfactory.
The charge against India’s detractors is not that they have
criticised, but that they have criticised untruthfully and
unfairly; and this is immediately clear when, the popular
picture of the treatment of women in India is compared
with the facts.
Sir Thomas Munro’s opinion on this subject has already
been quoted. 67 As far back as 1813 prejudice would appear
to have made some headway, for Munro was asked at that
time whether Hindu women were not slaves to their hus-
bands — to which he very sensibly replied: “They have as
much influence in their families as, I imagine, the women
have in this country.” 58 I11 our own time Mr. Brailsford
has noted the “respect and affection” with which Hindu
women are treated and the “sudden abandonment” of
the purdah system in the North, where it has always been
strongest. 69 During the Civil Disobedience Campaign
women who had spent their whole lives in seclusion came
out in thousands to walk unveiled in Congress processions.
Within the limited framework of the legislatures there has
also been a movement that has received little acknowledge-
ment. The Indian State of Travancorc granted the franchise
to women on equal terms with men in 1920. The following
year the Legislative Council of Madras, at its first session,
removed the sex disqualification with regard to the fran-
chise. Bombay and Bengal followed this lead, the Punjab
Council passing a similar measure without a division. In
the United Provinces the resolution to extend the franchise
to women was passed unanimously, whilst the same was the
case in the Indian State of Mysore. 80 Until 1926 it was
284 the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
impossible under the electoral rules laid down by the British
* iovernment for women to become Council members them-
'd ves; but as soon as this ban was removed the Provincial
( louncil of Assam led the way in this fuller extension
of the principle of sex equality. It was promptly followed
liy Bombay, Madras, the Punjab and the Central Provinces.
iic Legislative Assembly in 1922 passed by a large majority
a resolution granting the franchise to women in all provinces
where they were allowed to vote for the Provincial Councils,
(hough sex disqualification will be restored to a large extent
by the new Constitution, for which the Indian people are
not in any way responsible.
The history of the Sarda Act affords further evidence that
it is the Government which retards progress and Indian
nationalism which demands reforms. 61 By this Act the
marriage of girls below the age of fourteen or of boys below
eighteen has been forbidden — no drastic measure to a
Western mind, though it is important to remember that the
age of maturity is much lower in India than in our own
country.
Those who declaim most indignantly against child-
marriage in India are generally careful to avoid all reference
to the Sarda Act. The Act was at the outset opposed by
the Government and its nominees in the Legislative Assembly
so that its passage was considerably delayed. 62 “An abuse,”
wrote Mr. Horace Alexander in 1929, “which modern
Turkey would have swept away in a single session is still
allowed to linger on and fester.” 63 Pressure, however,
continued; and the Government, withdrawing its opposition
became “icily neutral.” Furthermore, when the Act was
eventually passed, the Government, as the executive
authority, became the guarantor of its ineffectiveness. 04
Child-marriage itself, though highly undesirable, has
been grossly misrepresented in this country; as for example
in the implication frequently assumed in it that marriages
are commonly consummated before puberty. It is doubt-
less possible to find many cases where this has occurred;
but to represent these as typical is criminally false, just as
it is a criminal libel to represent the leaders of modern
India as supporters of such practices. 66 Whatever individual
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 285
cases may be produced in evidence of pre-puberty con-
summation of marriage, the very fact that the race has
withstood the ravages of famine and disease is proof enough
that the practice cannot be universal, for otherwise the
national physique must have been utterly destroyed. 66
In the words of the 1901 Census Commissioners:
"No one who has watched the sturdy Jat women lift
their heavy water jars at the village well is likely to have
any misgivings as to the effect of their marriage system
on the physique of the race.”
Miss Mayo’s neurotic fantasies, written for the entertain-
ment of frustrated spinsters, concern us only in so far as
Westerners have "licked their chops with satisfaction” 67
over her alleged findings. Among the popular Mayo
myths it may be noted that
“ the monstrous allegation that Hindu mothers commonly
abuse their children is supported by not a shred of
evidence.” 68
Miss Mayo is also responsible for the legend that boys
are drafted into Hindu temples for the purpose of sodomy.
Regarding these two allegations it may be remarked that
the first (concerning Hindu mothers) is given on “ the highest
medical authority,” who is apparently too shy to allow his
name to appear. Regarding the second charge, Miss Mayo
must either have been citing actual convictions or uncon-
victed cases of which she had knowledge; yet she neither
quoted police records nor is it on record that she herself
instigated police proceedings.
Without dwelling any further on this particular book
we may usefully note its general technique, which is
typical of similar propaganda. In the first place we have
statements of fact and alleged quotations which are
demonstrably false. 60 Secondly, particular instances,
whether true or otherwise, are given an exaggerated
significance by generalisation, and often by a deliberate
suppression of other relevant facts. Thirdly, criticisms are
made in a vicious spirit of racial hatred which has assured
the book “of its place in the Pantheon of Hate.” 70 Fourthly,
286 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
there is no recognition that a similar “drain inspection ”
of America or any country in Europe would reveal equally
unpleasant material, for what it may be worth. 71 Fifthly,
there is a complete evasion of the fact that, in so far as
true instances are cited, they arc in large measure a con-
demnation of the Government, which has kept the people
in ignorance and done little itself, by way of legislation,
to remove social evils; for the Government has generally
been “neutral,” or even hostile, in its attitude to social
reform. 72 And finally there is a complete suppression of
the fact that the demand for reform comes principally
from the nationalist and socialist movements, which are
powerless to effect any sweeping changes in the country
until India is independent. Only in a free India will the
psychological impetus for such reforms be found among
the masses, or the power to implement reforms among
their leaders.
An example of the social evils which are unlikely to
outlive British rule is to be found in the opium traffic.
On this subject Professor Durant in his book The Case for
India 73 has stated the facts briefly and without exaggeration:
“Miss Mayo tells us that Hindu mothers feed opium
to their children. . . . She does not tell us (though she
must have known) that women drug their children
because the mothers must abandon them every day to
go to work in the factories. She does not tell us that the
opium is grown only by the Government, and is sold
exclusively by the Government; that its sale, like the
sale of drink through saloons, is carried on despite the
protest of the Nationalist Congress. . . . She does not
tell us that Burma excluded opium by law until the
British came, and is now overrun with it; 74 that the
British distributed it free in Burma to create a demand
for it; that whereas the traffic has been stopped in the
Philippines, England has refused at one World Opium
Conference after another to abandon it in India; that
the Report of the Government Retrenchment Com-
mission of 1925 emphasized ‘the importance of safe-
guarding opium sales as an important source of revenue,’
and recommended ‘no further reduction’: that when
Gandhi, by a peaceful anti-opium campaign in Assam
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 287
had reduced the consumption of the drug there by
one-half, the Government put a stop to his labours and
gaoled fourty-four of his aides.”
The forcing of the opium traffic on China in the interests
of the British merchants in India has already been noted.
The greatest Indian consumption of the drug is in Assam,
where in 1921 a resolution was proposed in the Legislative
Council that opium sales should be reduced by 10 per cent
yearly. The resolution was carried by a large majority,
in spite of the opposition of the Government nominees, the
Europeans, and various Indian title-holders; but the
Government refused to implement the decision. There is,
indeed, probably no better example of a demand in which
the political, social and religious leaders of Indian opinion
have been united against the Government. 7 6
Regarding the use of this drug a pitiful description was
given in the New York Nation :
. “The women who work in the mills of Calcutta and
Bombay give their babies opium in the morning so that
they will sleep all day . . . women in the villages who
work in the fields dope their babies before they go out,
so that they may not waken and cry in their mothers
absence.” 76
Referring to the efforts made in 1921 (during the Non-
co-operation Movement) to reduce opium consumption,
and the imprisonment of Gandhi’s workers in Assam,
Mr. Alexander wrote in 1929: “I am sorry to say, they arc
reluctant to repeat their experiment till they have some
guarantee of better treatment. ... As so often in India one
is up against the abominations of the corrup t police system.
Prostitution in India is another frequent subject of propa-
ganda intended to create race-prejudice. Much use is
made of the fact that devadasis, or prostitutes attached to
the temples, are to be found in parts of Southern India.
Little, however, is written regarding the growing opposition
to this practice or the fact that it has already been lega y
abolished in some of the Indian -States, 78 On the other
hand, a fact which will be entirely new to most Eng is 1
readers is that under Lord Roberts the British Army
288 Tn£ WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
organised prostitution in India for its own purposes. The
following is an extract from the circular memorandum
issued in the name of Roberts, as Commandcr-in-Chief,
by Quarter-Master General Chapman and sent to every
cantonment in India:
“In the regimental bazaars it is necessary to have a
sufficient number of women, to take care that they are
sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper
houses, and above all to insist upon means of ablution
being always available. . . .
“If young soldiers are carefully advised in regard to
the advantage of ablution, and recognise that convenient
arrangements exist in the regimental bazaar (i.e. in the
cliakla, or brothel), they may be expected to avoid the
risks involved in association with women who are not
recognised (that is, licensed) by the regimental
authorities .” 79
Dr. Walsh, who quotes this interesting circular, gives
examples of how it was implemented locally. In one case
an officer had sent a requisition to a magistrate “for extra
attractive women for regimental bazaar, in accordance
with Circular Memorandum 21a.” Another complained
that “there arc not enough women; they are not attrac-
tive enough. More and younger women are required .” 80
The existence of this documentary evidence makes
more serious the recent charge of Edmond Privat, a Swiss
Professor and former substitute-delegate at the League of
Nations, that “the only place where women were not safe
in India was under the walls of British barracks.” This
statement, quoted by Sir Samuel Iloare (and indignantly
denied by him as “a gross and outrageous charge” which
it was not worth his while to answer) has in fact never been,
answered at all. 81 So deeply rooted is Anglo-Indian myth-
ology in the present day that while the wildest stories of
Indian degradation may be freely circulated and are as
readily accepted, an accusation which is commonly believed
in India to be true in substance , 82 when voiced by a dis-
tinguished European, can only be met by hysterical denun-
ciations if the prestige of Empire is at stake.
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 289
NOTES
1 Vol I, Preface, pp, xii-xiii. This is in the edition of 1858, as quoted
throughout this book, and the date is significant. Bright in one of his
speeches gives an amusing picture of the newly appointed Viceroy
who “shuts himself up to study the first volume of Mr. Mill’s History
of India
2 Mill, as Wilson points out, was at pains to refute the opinions of
the great Orientalist, Sir William Jones (1746-94) of whom the Dictionary
of National Biography says that he “felt none of the contempt which his
English contemporaries showed to the natives of India.”
3 See The Briton in India by Professor T. J. George (Madras, 1936)
where the origin and growth of race prejudice is very thoroughly
examined.
* A Voyage to Surratt in the year 1689 by J. Ovington, M.A., Chaplain
to His Majesty. (London, 1696.)
6 The opinions of Hastings, Heber, Elphinstone and Malcolm, also
of Colonel Sleeman, will be found in Max Muller’s India , What Can if
Teach Us? (Lecture II, pp. 44-50, 6o-6t.) Muller shows that this
high opinion of the Hindus, with particular reference to their honesty,
was shared by many earlier writers such as Megasthenes and Marco
Polo.
* Elphinstone himself explains this reference to the government in
another paragraph (quoted by Muller, p. 61) in which says that
“deceit is most common in people connected with government, a class
which spreads far in India, as, from the nature of the land revenue,
the lowest villager is often obliged to resist force by fraud.”
7 Sir G. Campbell. Quoted by Muller (op. cit, p. 48: footnote).
Sir John Shore was of the same opinion. Nevertheless Captain John
Seely in The Wonders of Elora (London, 1824), noted the honesty ol
the Indian peasants.
8 Elphinstone’s History of India. Quoted by Max Muller (op. cit.
p. 59). Compare Note to Chap. VIII,
* Muller (op cit. pp. 42-43). The Abbe Dubois is also Miss Mayo’s
principal authority in Mother India, notwithstanding the fact that he
wrote of India 130 years ago.
10 Sir William Hunter in his Brief History of the Indian Peoples
(23rd Edition, p, 88) quotes the authority of Megasthenes that in his
time the Hindus scarcely ever had recourse to a law-suit.
11 Mill, Vol I, p. 329. Wilson in a footnote denies the “litigious”
character of the Hindus on the authority of Sir Thomas Munro. He
points out that this supposition arises from “the imperfection of our
own systems of finance and judicature,” and that it is curious that
Mill should sneer at the Hindus for not “taking the law into their
own hands.”
11 Footnote to Mill’s History, Vol I, p. 325.
13 Mill, Vol I, p. 325: Wilson’s footnote. He quotes a statement
from the Oriental Magazine of March, 1826, that “The dread of an oath
prevents men of credit from giving testimony at all, even to the loss ol
a just cause.”
14 “He represents the Hindus as such a monstrous mass of all vices
that, as Colonel Vans Kennedy remarked, society could not have held
2 Q 0 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
together if it had really consisted of such reprobates only.” (Max
Muller, op, tit, p. 44.)
JS The present author found this to be the case in every part of India
which he visited. One of Mill's authorities on Hindu inhospitality is
Dr. Tennant, whose evidence Wilson dismisses as based on the purest
ignorance. (Footnote to Vol I, p. 341.)
16 Mill, Vol II, p. 28. This characteristic observation illustrates
Lowes Dickinson’s contention that “of all the Western nations, the
English are the least capable of appreciating the qualities of Indian
civilisation.” {Essay on the Civilizations of India, China and Japan.)
17 Elphinstone’s History of India (Cowell’s Edition) p. 213. The
present position of the Church in India is illustrated in the case of
Mr. Verrier Elwin. In 1932, when he was still a priest of the Church
of England, lie was refused a licence to preach unless he took the Oath
of Allegiance. The Bishop of Nagpur in a letter dated Feb. 16th, 1932,
told him that the duty of the clergy was “to fit people to do their duty
as good citizens in that state of life into which it shall please God to
call them.” /
18 The Times , May 5th, 1932. It is significant that this meeting took
place under the chairmanship of Lord Meston, a former ruler of
India who takes an active part in anti-Indian political propaganda.
Lord (then Sir Frederick) Lugard in praising missionary activity in
Africa said that missions had done more perhaps, than any other
agency for developing British possessions. “I put aside,” he said, “the
spiritual aspect of such work and am looking at its economic advantages
to a State.” ( The Extension of British Infuence and Trade in Africa. 1895.)
18 The British “caste system” is described by Professor Durant in
The Case for India {New York, 1930) mainly in relation to the Indian .
people. Mr. A. G. Brown in An Ordinary Mans India gives an excellent
picture of the rigid subdivision of classes among the British themselves.
E. M. Forster’s classic, A Passage to India, though not documentary
evidence, may be recommended as easily the best description of the
absurdities of the whole system in action, as it affects both races.
*° The Indian Civil Service: so-called, according to Indian opinion,
because its members arc not Indian, nor civil, nor servants, as a general
rule.
21 Sir Valentine Chirol in India (p. 381). Edwin Montagu brings
out this fact in his Indian Diary, which describes his tour of India as
Secretary of State.
1 Letters of Qtieen Victoria , London, 1932. Of the general treatment
of Indians by individual Englishmen Sir Henry Cotton gives some
telling examples in New India (pp. G9-70). Similar evidence is to lie
found in Nevinson’s New Spirit In India (p. 117) and G. F. Abbott’s
Through India with the Prince. Keir Hardie in his book, India , gave further
examples of “insults, abuse and contumely,” and said that he “could
fill a decent sized volume” with similar stories. Quotations arc given
from all these witnesses, and others, in Dr. Sunderland’s India in Bondage
(Chap. VII). Such incidents as they describe are less common to-day,
not because the English mental attitude has changed, but because
Indians are less submissive.
** In India by G. W. Steevcns, London, 1899 (pp. 338 and 366).
Dr. Josiah Oldfield pointed out in an article many years ago that “in
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 291
the time of the old East India Company, India was more harshly though
more happily governed.” ( New Age, March, 1908.) He considered
that British officials thanks to “steamboats and cheap postage were
dependent on India for nothing but “sport and salary,” and that this
undermined any cultural sympathy.
** Compare Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment, by Sir Bamp Y f
Fuller (who made very similar criticisms) and Fielding Hall’s The
Passing of Empire.
15 In India, p. 366. Brailsford in Rebel India (p. 46) records the amused
astonishment of' Indian villagers in the United Provinces on meeting
an Englishman who was interested in what they had to eat. ie
villagers told him that the Sahibs only asked them about crime.
** Must Britain Lose India? by Lt. -Colonel Arthur Osburn, D.S.O.
(London, 1930). That the “Tommies" are not above reproach is
shown by the Penda case (mentioned on page 328, note m ) also by the
behaviour of thirty or forty men of the Wiltshire Regiment, who on
Dec. 24th and 25th, 1936, wrecked a club at Bangalore and looted
shops and restar rants. A very brief report of this appeared in some
British papers on Dec. 28th, 1936.
* T Burked famous speeches on India were made, of course, before
the French Revolution, after which his intellect was employed in the
service of reaction, t t
28 Macaulay's speech on July 10th, 1833. Macaulay praised Burkes
sympathetic insight, but did not imitate it. See his Essay an Clive,
where he refers to Indians as 11 men destitute of what in Europe is called
honour ” and proceeds to accuse the whole race of every conceivable
crime,
t* Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay . The indifference of Parliament was
more recently explained by a Conservative member of the House
(Mr, Macquistcn) when his party was accused of a lack of interest in
the Empire. He said that “when shareholders fail to turn up at a
meeting it indicates approval of the policy being pursued.’ Manchester
Guardian, July 13th, 1934.
80 Government in India Under a Bureaucracy , London 1853.
81 An Oxford Don, quoted by Thompson in his History of India.
He also quoted The Tiles (Feb. 25th, 1892), as saying that “Indian
history has never been made interesting to English readers except )y
rhetoric.” Henry Fawcett once complained that “a broken head on
Cold-Bath Fields produces a greater sensation amongst us than three
pitched battles in India."
82 History of India, p. 75. The fullest use is made of the education
system for anti-nationalist propaganda, as, for example, in the United
Provinces, where the Publicity Officer in 1932 offered prizes for the
best essays in condemnation of the National Congress,
Letter by John M, Douglas, a member of the Society of Friends
and former head master of a Mission School in the Central 1 rovinccs
(The Friend , October 30th, 1931)* How complete was the boycott of
the Prince's visit is shown by contemporary press cuttings. In Calcutta,
for example, according to the London Times of November 30th, \ 9 2 I >
M the streets were silent, dark and deserted. It was like a city of the
dead.” . _
14 Even J, R. Seeley in his Expansion of England expressed his doubt
u
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
292
as to whether British rule over the Indian people was not “sinking them
lower in misery.” It was his view that “subjection for a long time to
a foreign yoke is one of the most potent causes of national deterioration.”
Ramsay MacDonald expressed a similar view in The Awakening of India.
88 Speech to Douglas Rotary Club, as reported in The Listener ,
Dec. 30th, 1931.
38 Macaulay’s evidence before the Parliamentary Commission of
1853, In the words of Sir William Hunter, “the conquest of the land
was followed by the conquest of the mind.”
87 It may be noted that even Macaulay’s programme was progressive
by comparison with that of the East India Company before his lime.
Speaking in the House on June 3rd, 1853, John Bright mentioned the
dissatisfaction of the Court of Directors when four Indian students
came to London to study medicine.
88 In the Civil Service examinations Indians must, of course, compete
with Englishmen in their knowledge of the English language, English
literature and English history.
39 Rebel India , by H. N. Brailsford, p. 107. Indian history in the text
books means the Delhi Durbar and the achievements of the British
rulers,
leaves from the Jungle , p. 51. How this policy of emasculation is
systematically carried out has been demonstrated by Sir Henry Colton
in Indian and Home Memories . Mrs. Besant has analysed it with special
reference to education in India : Bond or Free ?
41 Leaves from the Jungle , p. 195.
43 In February, 1934, the Forest Department even issued an order
under Section 26 (2) (a) of the Indian Forest Act warning Mr. Elwin
against so much as entering any forest village without written permission.
This was done iri full knowledge of the fact that his work was confined
to educational and medical services.
43 The Simon Report went so far as to comment on the “notable
improvement that has attended the well-directed efforts in individual
Provinces like the Punjab.”
4 4 Another insuperable obstacle under the present regime is the fact
that for eighty years the medium of instruction in schools has been
English. Until this system can be radically changed real popular
education is an impossibility.
V
46 This shortage of money did not prevent the Government, which
retained control of European education, from spending annually in
Bengal over for every European student in contrast with 4s. 6d. spent
annually on each Indian student.
4 * 1931 Census, Part I, p. 334-5. The Simon Report will be more
accessible to the average reader and will be found to contain interesting
comparative figures, including those which illustrate the relative back-
wardness of British India (already mentioned) as compared with
Travancore, Cochin and Baroda. (See Simon Report, Vol I, p. 382.)
Mr. Brailsford in Rebel India (p. 98) mentions the contrast of Calcutta,
which succeeded under its socialist Mayor (Mr. Subhas Bose) in educat-
ing 60 per cent of the children in the municipality “in spite of dire
poverty, without compulsory powers.”
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 293
41 These are, of course, Buddhist monasteries, the native education
system having been less interfered with in Burma than in India owing
to its different character and the more recent conquest of the country.
48 “India’s Return to Pre-British Standards,” by W. E. Lucas
(Great Britain and the East, Oct. 22nd, 1936)*
43 Uplift in the Indian Village. The book was published in England
under the title The Remaking of Village India. Sir Malcolm Hailey, in
a preface to this book, points out that “there were many who, not
unreasonably, reared the result of preaching to the villager that dis-
content with his own conditions of life. . . . ” But there is nothing in
the book itself to arouse such apprehensions.
60 Finance Member of the Indian Government from 1922-1928.
S1 Leaves from the Jungle , pp. 146-7.
8 3 Leaves from the Jungle , p. 171. The present author found the same
general impression of missionaries, due mainly to their relatively
luxurious standard of living as compared with the Indian average.
Alexander, in The Indian Ferment (p. 188) records the mirth of an ^ Indian
class of students on learning that a Christian “fast” meant eating fish
instead of meat.
** Forrest’s Selections from the Minutes and Other Official Writings of
the Hon. Mountsluart Elphinstone. (1884), p. 102.
84 The present author discovered, as many others must have done,
that one’s first voyage to India is made the occasion for every effort to
create prejudice in the new-comer’s mind. He must indeed have a clear
head if he is not to reach Bombay with his mind already made up by
the incessant anti-Indian propaganda to which he has been subjecte
on the voyage.
88 Letter to The Times , May 2nd, 1932. O’Dwyer was Governor of
the Punjab at the time of the massacre. He concludes most modestly
that “the British soldier would probably blush at this description
forgetful no doubt that there were also angels at Mons.
8 8 The Isles of Fear , by Kathleen Mayo. Another American con-
tributor to this series is Mrs. Patricia Kendal, whose book Come with me
to India was also greeted with much approval by the Anglo-Indian
community.
87 See Chapter VIII, p. 144.
86 Minutes of Evidence, &c. on the Affairs of the East India Company (1813).
89 Rebel India, p. 74. Purdah (the veiling and seclusion of women)
has suffered a formidable blow owing to the deliberate policy, as well
as the practical necessities, of the nationalist movement. (See
Chapter X*)
ea Under the Montagu-Chelmsford Constitution, which came into
operation at this time, Provincial Legislative Councils were to be
elected by a male electorate, but the Councils were empowered to
remove the sex disqualification themselves,
61 This Act has sometimes been claimed as a “result* 1 of Miss Mayo s
propaganda. It is therefore important to note that it was preceded
by years of agitation which began before Miss Mayo’s name was even
known in India, and that similar acts had been passed in the Indian
states of Baroda, Mysore and Indore before her book was written.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
-94
6 ! The Government actually drafted an alternative bill reducing the
age limit for girls to twelve and providing for conscientious objectors.
All Government nominees with one exception voted against the Sarda
Act in 1927.
6 3 The Indian Ferment , p. 1 1 ,
** Brailsford in Rebel India (p. 77). He quotes the case of a Punjab
notable who was convicted under the Sarda Act and promptly pardoned
by the Government. ’‘After that,” remarks Brailsford, “the Act
became virtually a dead letter.”
65 Miss Mayo in Mother India quoted botli Gandhi and Tagore— the
former from an “interview” which he repudiated and the latter from
his writings. In the case of Tagore, Miss Mayo removed two words
in such a way as to attribute views to the Indian poet which he had
never expressed as his own, and so identified him with opinions which
he had opposed for a lifetime. Other “witnesses,” both English and
Indian, repudiated statements attributed to them in Mother India.
These included the Principal of Victoria College, Lahore.
56 It should be noted that child-marriages were common to ancient
Greece and Rome, also to seventeenth century England, without
“degeneracy” resulting from them. Sir Denzil Ibbotson in a letter to
The Leader (Allahabad, Sept. 19th, 1927) gives the normal period
between “gift-marriage” and consummation as three to nine years.
67 The Indian Ferment , p. 242. The New Statesman, as quoted on the
dust-cover of Mother India, stated that it “makes the claim for Swaraj
seem nonsense and the will to grant it almost a crime.”
0 The Indian Ferment , p. 191. That Britain has even more vigorous
allies than Miss Mayo is shown by a statement issued to the Associated
Press (April 13th, 1933), by Rabindranath Tagore. Dr. Tagore quoted
a well-known Argentine paper which had published a photograph of
a Parsee “Tower of Silence,” with a note explaining that in such towers
the living bodies of heretics were offered to kites and vultures. The
British, said this paper, were trying to suppress this practice.
•' “Some of the things which Miss Mayo pretends to have seen at
Kalighat could not have been seen by any Westerner.” ( The Indian
Ferment, p. 70.) Nor are they typical, as numerous writers have pointed
out, even if the descriptions are correct.
70 Wyndham Lewis in The Enemy.
1 1 Indian writers not unnaturally adopted this method of reply in
some cases, and Miss Mayo’s book was followed by lurid Indian publi-
cations on the less reputable aspects of American life. The picture of
any country in the world which can be pieced together from hospital
records, police-court news and the gossip of the brothels is indeed
astonishing.
7 2 The reader may be interested to note as a literary curiosity the
record of a speech made by Lady Cynthia Mosley on Nov. 29th, 1927,
with regard to Mother India. Lady Cynthia took the view that “even
if ail the things in this book are true, that is all the greater argument for
Indian Home Rule.” She referred indignantly to the British opposition
to the Sarda Act and to the suppression by The Times of a letter of
protest signed by ten prominent Indians. (Special supplement to
The Indian, December, 1927.) The reader is recommended to Mr,
Ernest Wood’s book An Englishman defends Mother India for a further
ANGLO-INDIAN MYTHOLOGY EVOLUTION 295
study of this particular source of misinformation. There are also a
number of Indian replies to Miss Mayo (most of them published in
India) and in fairness to the missionaries it should be noted that the
National Christian Council of India publicly repudiated her picture
of the country as “untrue to the facts and unjust to the people of
India.”
73 The Case for India (New York, 1930).
74 Evidence regarding Burma is quoted by Dr. Sunderland (India in
Bondage, p. 155). The evidence given here regarding the use of opium
may be compared with that cited by Marx in Capital (Everyman edition,
p. 424), regarding its use in Britain in the nineteenth century. He
quotes medical evidence regarding the drugging of children with
opiates in both industrial and agricultural areas. The causes were the
same in both countries.
r s The Bra hmo-Sa maj and the Arya-Samaj have both declaied for
abolition and the Nationalist press has associated itself wholeheartedly
with the demand of the Geneva Opium Conference for a limitation of
opium production to medicinal needs.
7 ® Letter by Gertrude Marvin Williams, dated Calcutta July 2nd,
1925. Similar statements were made by Mr. C. F. Andrews (Modern
Review, Calcutta, June, 1925), who described these babies “with their
shrunk, old, wizened faces* lying drugged with opium on the floors
of the wretched hovels of Bombay.”
77 The Indian Ferment , p. 87. Mr. Horace Alexander is an authority
of international repute on the subject of opium.
79 The most recent example was the Indian State of Cochin, where
“temple prostitution” was abolished by law in 1931.
79 Quoted by Dr. Walter Walsh in The Moral Damage of War (Boston,
1 906) pp. 131-192. Dr. Walsh quotes also from the New Age of Nov.
27th, 1902, an account given by Lord George Hamilton regarding an
Indian who was murdered by two men of the Ninth Lancers because
he failed to find native women for them.” (Moral Damage of War,
p. 162.) .
80 It is interesting to note here that syphilis is known in India as
Feringkee or “European” disease, and according to medical evidence
quoted by Dr. Sunderland (India in Bondage , p. 388) was introduced
from Europe. Mr. Havelock EMis (Sex in Relation to Society, p. 3 2 7 )
shows that venereal disease “is ten times more frequent among the
British troops than among the native troops,” ’
81 1 loare’s speech in the House of Commons as Secretary of State
for India; reported in The Times (April 30th, I 9 . 3 2 )* Hoare. at the same
time made an attack upon the Friends of India (an organisation of which
the present author was at that time an honorary official) accusing ihis
organisation also of “gross and outrageous charges,” which he did not
specify. Though challenged in the Manchester Guardian (May 2nd, 1932)
to prove a single inaccuracy. Sir Samuel did not reply.
82 Such was the experience of the present author, also of Dr. Sunder-
land, who states in Ins book India in Bondage that “In my own travels
in India I found that all communities in or near which soldiers were
stationed, particularly foreign (British) soldiers, regarded their presence
as a danger to their women, and always felt greatly relieved when the
soldiers were ordered away.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL
There is a true story of India that is also a parable of
British rule. It is to be found in the history of the Sal
■%
forests of the Gangetic Plain.
For fifty years British forestry experts protected these
forests from fire, and it was only a few years ago that they
made an interesting discovery. It appeared that, after all,
these Sal forests, unlike resinous forests, required an occa-
sional fire to stimulate their growth. Fire destroys the
undergrowth, leaving an ash which forms an alkaline
mould and makes good soil for the young saplings.
Fifty years of protection produced a thick undergrowth,
damp and heavy in the rainy season. It kept the light
from the young shoots and covered them with a poisonous
acid mould which killed them. Such shoots as survived
were eaten by deer, which multiplied under British forestry
laws. For while deer were protected by law, white sahibs
on safari had greatly reduced the number of tigers which
(regardless of law) might otherwise have kept down the
number of deer.
A few years before, the protection of India’s forests had
been considered indisputable evidence of the success of
British administration in this sphere. By i 93 °> though it
was not (and will not be) publicly admitted, the experts
knew that British efficiency had been misplaced. 1 hey
were humbly learning from a natural, unprotected foicst
how sal regenerates itself when freed from interference. 1
Life and property are not dearer to us than our illusions,
when self-esteem depends upon them. The British still
believe that they brought irrigation to India. The simple
fact, proved by Sir William Willcocks, is that the canals
built 3,000 years ago by the rulers of Bengal have fallen
into disuse and disrepair under British rule. What was
296
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 297
achieved a thousand years before Christ the British Govern-
ment, with all the devices of modern engineering at its
disposal, had not even the interest to maintain. 2
In more recent years, it is true, the necessity for en-
couraging cotton crops and the possibilities of irrigation
as a profitable investment have led to the construction
of canals in many parts of the country; and Bengal may
yet be favoured with the attentions of those who have
discovered a new field for the employment of surplus
caoital. It has also been realised that the control of canal
water is a powerful political weapon with which to menace
seditious peasants. 3 ... j
But until these discoveries were made nothing was done.
The East India Company in its early years neither repaired
canals itself nor permitted the people to do so. Dutt has
demonstrated in his Economic History of British India that
throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the
canals which are the arteries of Indian agriculture were
continually neglected in favour of railway construction,
because the latter suited the economic interests of Britain
at the time. 4 Eventually, when irrigation works were
seriously undertaken, the land revenue was augmented so
heavily that in -many parts of the country the peasant
gained nothing from a profit that was shared by the Govern-
ment, the banks, the British contractors and their
employees. 6 . . .. , „
The point of main importance is that imperialism has
brought no benefit to India which a free country (using,
if necessary, such foreign technical assistance as Russia
has employed) could not have developed for itself. Indeed,
it was said of the greatest pioneer of irrigation under
British rule that:
“Sir Arthur Cotton is merely an imitator, on a grand
scale and with considerable personal genius, of the
ancient Native Indian engineers.
Sir Arthur Cotton himself, who would not have disputed
this statement, made it clear that in his opinion t ic irn
gation schemes which he desired to press upon the Govern-
298 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
ment were held back because canal traffic would compete
with the railways in which British capital was interested. 7
As in the case of Ceylon, the British Government was
only slowly driven by force of necessity to revert to a
system which it had too long neglected. 8
Regarding the railways themselves, it may be remarked
that, in addition to the appalling exploitation involved
in the guarantee system, the lack of any popular super-
vision of their construction has led to extensive damage.
Sir William Willcocks, in his lectures at Calcutta University,
showed that railway embankments have been allowed to
cut across the natural drainage system of the country,
acting as a dam during the heavy rains and vastly in-
creasing the damage of floods in the low-lying districts. 0
Willcocks and other authorities have attributed the si lting
up of the Ganges delta as much to the method of railway
construction as to general neglect by the Government.
Meanwhile in vast areas “all that the people know of
the Government is that it takes away their money. . . .
It gives them no roads, no irrigation, no medical aid —
nothing; and its officials are the only thieves in the dis-
trict.’!^ 0 The trade figures often quoted to prove the
growing prosperity of such people are completely irrelevant.
The profits of trade are shared between British and Indian
capitalists. Ihe food grains which the country sends
abroad bring no profit to the cultivator, who must sell
them to pay the Government, the landlord and the usurer,
while he himself may live on the carcases of rats or die of
starvation. 11 India’s “favourable balance of trade” means
simply that “Home Charges” (including debts) and
interest on foreign investments are paid by a surplus of
exports over imports. If this still leaves a margin, made
up by imports of bullion, the peasant is still no richer for
the fact. The bullion imports of the past have represented
partly re-investment and partly the hoarding of India’s
feudal aristocracy, which exchanges for gold the produce
which it wrings from the peasantry. 12
Trade is, in fact, simply a charge on the movement of
commodities; and an export of agricultural produce from
a starving country in payment of interest on unprofitable
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 299
debts or in exchange for the bullion hoarded by princes
and landlords is not a gain but a dead loss to the Indian
masses. Regarding the history of imports enough has
already been said. 13
Equally invalid is the attempted explanation of Indian
poverty by Census figures. It is true that the last ten years
have shown a considerable increase in the population,
though this has been less rapid in British India than it
has been in the Indian States. But this increase does not
account for the growth of poverty up to 1921. 14 Until
that time much of the apparent increase was due to
annexation of territory, and an examination of figures
per square mile yields surprising results. Actually, though
the population per square mile increased by 6.5 per cent
between 1871 and 1891, it fell in 1901 to 97*6 per cent
of the 1871 figure, and by 1921 was only 105. 1 per cent of
that figure — showing an increase of 5.1 per cent in fifty
years. Even France, where the population figures are
considered “stationary,” increased by 5.7 per cent during
this same period, while England and Wales increased by
66.8 per cent. 15
The net increase of population between 1871 and 1921
was actually less than. 54 millions; 16 that is to say about
25 per cent in 50 years, during which period the population
of Europe increased by 47 per cent. The discrepancy
between this 25 per cent increase and the percentages
given above for population per square mile is due to the
fact that tire new areas included after 1871 were less
thickly populated than the rest of British India. Both
methods of calculation, however, show that India increased
its population (up to 1921) less rapidly than Europe.
The reason is simple enough. Comparing the Birth and
Death Rate figures for British India with those of England
and Wales from 1910 to 1914, we find that the average
Indian Birth Rate was 39.4, the Death Rate 30.8, and
the resulting Survival Rate 8.6. On the other hand, the
British Birth Rate averaged 24.2, the Death Rate only 13.7,
the Survival Rate being 10.5. 17
Even to-day India is not overpopulated. The density
of her population is considerably less than half that of
300 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Britain or Belgium; 18 but the destruction of Indian in-
dustries threw an increasing burden upon agriculture up
to the year 1921. 18 Uncultivated land there still is, much
of it the property of princes and big landlords, whilst
the Government itself keeps 13 per cent of the land for
forestry purposes. About a fifth of the area under cultiva-
tion is irrigated, according to official statistics, but less
than half of the irrigation works are due to State enter-
prise. Private enterprise in irrigation is meanwhile hindered
by the taxation of wells.
Writing in 1916, Mr. P. K, Wattal, of the Indian Finance
Department, drew attention to several features in which
India compared very unfavourably with Europe. He
noted that there was a smaller natural increase, in spite
of a higher birth-rate, and a smaller average expectation
of life with a steady downward tendency. 20 The increase
of population is now less rapid in some of the European
countries, 21 whilst that of India has become more rapid.
But the causes of poverty cannot be found in the increase
of the past decade in view of the fact that poverty was
already growing before that time. We must also recognise
that there would still be room for a further expansion of
population in India if the resources of the country were
properly developed and the wealth equitably distributed.
The Government’s official publication India in 1929—30
spoke of poverty as “the most characteristic feature of the
rural classes of India.” According to this authority:
“A large proportion of the inhabitants of India are
still beset with poverty of a kind which finds no parallel
in Western lands, and are living on the very margin of
subsistence.” 22
This poverty is the result of 150 years of extortion. It
began in Bengal with the robberies described in the early
chapters of this book and a steady rise in the land tax
assessment to double or treble the amount exacted by the
Indian rulers. 23 It progressed with the policy of annexa-
tion, whereby the revenues of Indian States were plundered
on the pretext of defence. 24 It was systematised in some
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 301
of the Provinces by the creation of an Indian land-owning
class, which by the year 1900 was paying only 28 per cent
of its rents to the Government and keeping the rest of
the plunder as a reward for its loyalty . 25
In the 3 yotwari provinces a standard levy of 45 per cent
to 50 per cent on the gross produce of the peasant, and
in some cases of a revenue assessment actually exceeding
the gross produce, 2 6 drove the helpless villagers into per-
manent indebtedness. 2 7 As the Whitley Report remarks,
“the influence of the economic thought in the nineteenth
century led to the removal of all legal restrictions on usurious
practices in India.” 28 The result in the present day can
be measured by the aggregate of £692,376,920 in rural
indebtedness, as recently computed by the Indian Central
Banking Enquiry.
In the nineteenth century famine proved an increasing
menace, not because of any universal shortage of food,
but because of this growing poverty and the consequent
inability of the peasants to purchase in time of local
scarcity. This was admitted by the Famine Commission
of 1898 with regard to the famine in the previous year.
While the “Greek gift” of railways proved a costly burden,
one-ninth of the sum spent upon them was spent on works
of irrigation up to 1900. 2 9 What little good the Govern- j
ment did for the people could hardly have been avoided
in its own interests: the rest of its activities were organised
forms of plunder. Even its system of justice was described
by Sir Henry Strachcy as a “horrid system,” worse than
the crimes it sought to suppress in its “shocking cruelty,” 30
“India had been populous and flourishing, the people
thriving and happy,” wrote Horace Wilson of the con-
ditions “for centuries prior to the introduction of European
agency.” 31 Unlike previous conquerors, the British, till
force of circumstances compelled them to make terms
with the reactionary elements of Indian society, excluded
the conquered people from all positions of responsibility.
“There is probably,” wrote Holt Mackenzie, “no
example of a Government carrying the principles of
absolutism so completely through the civil administration
302 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
of the country, if that can be called civil which is in
spirit so military.” 32
Under such a system, embryonic of modern fascism,
Indians were for years "excluded from every honour,
dignity or office which the lowest Englishman could be
prevailed upon to accept.” 33 By the end of the nineteenth
century the villagers, powerless to protect themselves
either from the Government or the native parasites whom
it shielded, were paralysed with poverty. The results of
an enquiry made in 1888 by the Government were so
frightful that the authorities kept them secret; 34 but we
have the authority of Sir William Hunter that in his time
forty millions passed through life with only one meal a day. 36
Another eminent official stated that half of the agricultural
population did not get a square meal during the whole
course of the year, the standard of "squareness” being
the food supplied in the Indian prisons. 38
It was Sir William Hunter’s opinion that the Govern-
ment assessment did not leave the cultivator enough food
to support himself and his family throughout the year.
“It profits little,” he said, enumerating what seemed to
him the blessings of British Rule, “ if the people have not
enough to eat, and if the country cannot support the cost
of our rule.” 37
Henry George realised that “the real cause of want in
India has been, and yet is, the rapacity of man, not the
niggardliness of Nature.” Sir Daniel Hamilton explained
this fact bluntly:
“The World takes the surplus crops, the sowcar and
the trader take the money and the devil takes the
people.” 38
Taxation falls most heavily upon the poorest classes, a
fact which was justified by Sir John Strachey on the grounds
that they needed most famine relief, to which they should
therefore contribute most substantially. 39 Even the Simon
Report recommended a steeper gradient in the Income
Tax; and it is interesting to note that the proposal was
severely criticised by one of the Government’s Indian
allies, who found it:
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 303
“politically dangerous, as it would throw the zemindars
and propertied classes into the arms of the sansculottes ,
who are at the bottom of the present troubles.” 40
Taxation is, in fact, estimated to be higher to-day (even
allowing for the fall in the value of the rupee) than it was
under Aurungzib, 41 and annually about 30 per cent of
the revenue goes to England in payment of “ Home
Charges” and interest on the National Debt. Nor does
this percentage include the savings of British officials.
Much of the revenue under the Mughals had come from
the forfeiture of the estates of deceased grandees — a
100 per cent Death Duty. “Every man’s Title and Estate,”
wrote Ovington, “are as mortal as himself, die with him,
and return to the disposal of the Sovereign.” 42 But in
modern India the grandees are secure : the landlord is
exempt from income tax and it is the poor peasant who
bears the growing burden of taxation.
“There is no expectation,” wrote the Daily Telegraph
correspondent in 1933, “of any reduction in India’s heavy
taxation, which is rapidly approaching Britain’s high
standard, if one can judge from the rate of increases in
the last few years.” 43
In considering the incidence of taxation it is important
to note that, on the vast sums paid annually as interest
on loans raised in London, no Income Tax whatsoever
is paid in India. By raising loans in London the Govern-
ment adds materially to the resources of the British Ex-
chequer at the cost of the Indian taxpayer. Income Tax
on the Sterling Debt is paid at this end as a British tax
on British dividends; and India, by losing this tax, pays
virtually a higher rate of interest than the current rates
would justify for every pound borrowed in London. 44
Hyndman in his Bankruptcy of India showed how the
avarice of the Government 45 was in his time leading to
the deterioration of agriculture. Since fallow and cultivated
land were taxed at the same rate, the peasants could give
no rest to their fields, which were overworked. Crops that
exhausted the soil were already being grown because these
alone enabled the peasant to pay the Government, the
304 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
landlord and the usurer. And the destruction of the
panchayat system, his last remaining protection against
usury, was rapidly driving the peasant to destitution.
The appalling poverty of India in the present century
has been recorded by such observers as Dr. Josiah Oldfield 46
and Professor Gilbert Slater, who estimated the average
income per head in 1925 as about 4^d. a day. 47 This
average was inclusive of rich and poor alike, so that the
average for the peasant was even lower. In one case
Slater records that a detailed examination of a Madras
pariah settlement showed an average of only 2^d.
per head per day “which means a halfpenny a day in
addition to a bare sufficiency of rice.” In another case
the average proved to be only one penny, which Mr. Elwin
recently estimated to be the average among the Gonds.
In a Gond market he could not even change a rupee.
Lord Curzon’s estimate of the average income in 1901
was ■£ 2 per head per year; and the Simon Report, in
quoting it, stated that £8 represented the most optimistic
estimate in 1922, when retail prices were over 100 per cent
higher. 46 Another authority, writing of Bengal, stated
that the peasants were living in 1927 on a diet “on which
even rats could not live for more than five weeks.” 49
Nothing could be more absurd than to assume that people
living in such conditions arc progressing materially because
an increasing quantity of luxury goods from the West is
imported for the use of capitalists and absentee landlords
in the towns.
Sir Alfred Chatterton stated in 1930 that
“70 per cent to 80 per cent of the population are still
living on almost the margin of subsistence.” 60
That this poverty is not due to the incompetence of the
cultivators has been abundantly proved since Dr. Voelcker’s
time. 61 Even in the Punjab, where irrigation is most
extensive and the people are considered relatively pros-
perous, the net income of the peasant was estimated
recently to average 27s. per annum. 52 In the poorest
parts of the country the people live so sparsely that the
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3°5
Government is at a loss to know what to tax. Consequently
the villagers living in Central India, under the admimstra-
tion of the Forestry Department, have their buffaloes taxed
while there is also a tax on the white mud they use to
keep their huts clean and the leaves they use for want of
The world depression fell upon India with the fury
of a tropical tornado. The peasant saw the value of his
crops tumbling from one harvest to another, to one-halt
or a third. ... The village was ruined. . - . Its crops
would fetch barely half the wonted price. But its debts,
its taxes and its rents stood stolidly at the old figure.^
Mr. Brailsforcl estimates that the general fall in prices
increased India’s indebtedness to Britain by one-third.
Tax adjustments followed in some areas— tardy and utterly
inadequate. By 1935 the Manchester Guardian found the
income of the Indian peasantry “barely credible and
stated that
“The figures for a typical group of farmers in the Punjab
show that the average net income per man fell from
about ninepence a day in^ 1928-29 to about three-
farthings a day in 1 93 ° 3 1 * 64
According to Professor P. G. Thomas of the University
of Madras the one thing that saved the Indian peasant
during the slump was his own sound instinct in preferring
food crops to “money” crops. “The Indian peasant,
according to Professor Thomas, “even at the best of times
lives on the verge of poverty; and most of the economic
surplus from agriculture goes into the pockets of the land-
lord, money-lender or Government. The depression has
increased the inequalities of distribution between these
partners in the agricultural business. The shares of the
Government, the landlord and the money-lender are
fixed, and thus the risks have largely fallen on the peasant,
wlio is the least capable of bearing them. 66
The story of Indian industrial labour is no less terrible,
though as yet industrial conditions affect only a small
proportion of the population. 60 These conditions have
been made known in Britain through the Whitley Report,
306 the WHITE SAHIBS in INDIA
and can be studied in a more readable presentation in
the work of Margaret Read. 57 The Report of the Whitley
Commission showed that 97 per cent of the working class
in Bombay were housed “in one- roomed tenements with as
many as six to nine persons living in one room.” The same
applied to one-third of the population at Karachi and
73 per cent of the working class at Ahmedabad. 58 The
Commissioners concluded that “nearly all the workers
live in single rooms.” The Whitley Report noted the
absence of latrines in these workers’ houses, many of the
hovels being also without windows or adequate ventilation.
Mi . Brailsford tells us of two rows of workers’ tenements
in Ahmedabad, served by a single tap on which “seven
hundred human bodies depended for the water of life.” 59
Housing conditions in Bombay City, according to
The Times, are “reminiscent of the Black Hole of historical
memory.” 60 Among the slums of this city are those owned
by the Bombay Improvement Trust, “an immensely wealthy
semi-official corporation, run by Englishmen.” 61
“Poverty more shameless, more naked, more undisguised
than in any city I have ever visited in any part of the
world/ was Miss Monica Whatelcy’s description of con-
ditions in the Indian cities. Yet those conditions, as Miss
iWhateley remarks, exist side by side with “all the appear-
ances of wealth and prosperity that we can see in any
European city.” 62 While the death rate in Benares Canton-
ment, where the White Sahibs lived in luxury, stood at
12.3, the rate in the native town of Benares was 46.1. 8 3
The Whitley Report states that the rate of infantile
mortality, averaging between 200 and 250 per 1,000 births
for the general population of India, reached 298 per 1,000
in Bombay during the year 1929, and that
recent reports on the health conditions of Madras and
Rangoon give rates of 300 to 350 per 1,000 for certain
parts of these cities.” 64
Maternal mortality is also unusually high, averaging 24.5
per 1,000, and reaching the figure of 50 per 1,000 in
Bengal, as compared with 4.06 for England and Wales
in 1 932, 6 6 In view of these figures it is interesting to note
the brightest Jewel 3°7
that in Madras the Legislative Council has, so far without
effect, asked the Government to open birth control clinics.
Such clinics were opened in the Indian State of Mysoic
in 1930.
According to the Whitley Report, no less than two
thirds of the families and individuals in industrial centres
arc in debt, the amount of these debts in the great majority
of cases exceeding three months’ wages. The relative
inefficiency of Indian labour is generally acknowledged to
be due mainly to under-nourishment, bad housing, and
the ill-health resulting from general industrial conditions,
whilst lack of education bears part of the responsibility. 06
Both the indebtedness of the industrial workers and the
prevalence of preventable diseases may be attributed
principally to the low wages paid in Indian industries.
Wages in the towns are admittedly higher as a general
rule than they are in agriculture, but the cost of living
is proportionately greater. As the Whitley Report tells us.
“Few industrial workers would remain in industry
if they could secure sufficient food and clothing in the
village; they are pushed, not pulled into the city.”
The inadequacy of factory legislation has already been
noted. 67 The Whitley Report speaks of workers “as young
as five years of age” who toil “without adequate meal
intervals or weekly rest days, and often for ten or twelve
hours daily for sums as low as two annas”; that is to say,
for about twopence a day. 68
According to the Whitley Commissioners “the vast
majority of workers in India do not receive more than
about a is. a day.” They estimated that in Bengal “which
includes the large mass of industrial workers, 60 per cent
earned not more than ij. 2 d. daily, - scaling down as
low as 7 d. to 9 d. for men and 3 d. to 7 d. in the case of
children and women, the working day averaging ten hours.
It is hardly necessary to point out that a Royal Com-
mission under the Chairmanship of the ex-Speakcr of the
House of Commons is unlikely to have overstated the case
in this terrible indictment. Unemployment has also
followed with all the other evils that arise from capitalist
308 the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
industrialisation. Meanwhile the fall in the consumption
of cotton goods from 13^ yards per head in 1 91 3-14 to
yards per head in 1930-31 is the surest indication of in-
creasing poverty. 89 Cotton cloth being their main item
of expenditure apart from food, the Indian peasant and
worker must clearly be economising in the barest neces-
sities of life. Whoever called India “the brightest jewel in
the British Crown 5 ' must have had a macabre sense of
humour.
Increasing poverty has been accompanied by a falling
standard of health. A single influenza epidemic in 1918-19
resulted in 11,000,000 deaths, 70 Among prevalent diseases
those due to under-nourishment are especially common.
According to the report of an enquiry instituted by the
Director of the Indian Medical Service, tuberculosis is
widely disseminated and “increasing steadily and rather
rapidly.” The last Census showed that the expectation
of life (at birth) was 26.91 years for males and 26.56 years
for females — figures which should be compared with the
average length of life in 1881, which was calculated to
be 30.75 years. 71
“Why in the name of glory were they proud?” 72 The
poet’s query fits the Empire builders of our own day as
well as those for whom it was written. The answer is that
while the Indian peasant lives on one-seventh of the “dole”
of an unemployed British worker, huge fortunes are being
made from his poverty and from the exploitation of
industrial labour.
From the plantations, mainly owned by European
Companies, dividends up to 225 per cent have been
received in recent years. 73 On the other hand, as we have
seen in the case of the railways, the Government has
always been willing to help out the capitalist at the cost
of the Indian peasant when there has been any difficulty.
Sir George Campbell in his Memoirs tells how a private
company established a system of irrigation in Orissa, and
failed to make it pay. As a result, we read;
“That happened which usually happens when British
capitalists have put their money into losing concerns
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 309
in India, people in London bullied and abused the
Government to get the concern taken over and eventually
they were successful. The Government paid out the
company in full, with an additional bonus, and have
since expended a great deal more, making upwards of
three millions sterling. From that day to this the concern
has hardly ever paid its working expenses, much Jess
a farthing of interest on the capital.” 74
Similarly, thanks to the guarantee system, shares in the
G.I.P. Railway, then working at a loss, were bought in 1885
at a premium of 25 per cent. The peasant paid the losses.
The deliberate development of Indian industries, dating
roughly from the time of the War, brought new capitalist
interests into the field. 75 For the first time British investors
were officially encouraged to foster these Indian industries,
and His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner in India, in a Report
on the Prospects of British Trade, held before them the lure
of a lower income tax in this new Paradise for Capital.
One of the enormous advantages of the Indian Empire
had been in the past the deflection of a vast proportion of
Government business in the direction of Britain. Just as
the British investor has always had the first chance when
loans have been raised, so British firms have had a virtual
monopoly in the supply of Government stores and railway
material, and, of course, in all engineering contracts . 76
By a resolution of December, 1929* the Government of
India now decided to modify this policy and allow India
to produce all Government requirements whenever the
Indian product was considered “sufficiently good for the
purpose.” 77
The Jute industry was one of the first Indian industries
in which British capital became interested. Founded in
1855 by an Englishman, it was employing half a million
workers in 1924* Thus a trade which was once centred
in Dundee grew up around Calcutta 78 under British
control, to the ruin of the Scottish industry. According
to Miss Vera Anstey, thirty-two of the Indian jute mills
paid 100 per cent dividends in at least one year between
1918 and 1927. During the same period twenty-nine mills
paid at least 20 per cent each year .and ten mills never
3 :o THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
less than 40 per cent. 78 Figures in 7 he Investor's India
Tear Books from 1928-30 show that the Hooghly Mills
Company paid an average annual dividend of 125 per cent
between 1918 and 1928. 80 In 1928, when at least five
companies were paying 100 per cent or over, the owners
decided to increase factory hours from fifty- four to sixty
per week and to reduce wages. The workers, like the
wicked animal in the French couplet, defended themselves
when thus attacked by going on strike.
Coal companies have not been far behind in enterprise.
While wages varied from 4 \d. per day (for women, in
some of the mines) to ir. 4 W. for skilled labour, dividends
rose in 1923 to 150 per cent in the case of one firm and
85 per cent in the case of two others. In 1931 over 10 per
cent was paid by seventeen colliery companies, of which
five paid over 30 per cent. One of these firms paid 57^
per cent and one 80 per cent. 8 1 According to the Whitley
Report the miners meanwhile lived on a diet of rice and
salt. Some of the highest dividends have been paid by
the East India Goal Co., with an imposing list of directors
which includes the name of Sir Harcourt Butler, formerly
Governor of the United Provinces.
Central Provinces’ Manganese Shares caused consterna-
tion in 1926, paying only 100 per cent owing to Russian
competition. 8 2 In 1928, however, the capital was in-
creased by a share bonus, and still paid 22^ per cent
on the watered capital for 1929 and 1930, the shares
selling in February, 1931, at 43L 67. 83 In 1931 the slump
in metals reduced dividends to 17^ per cent tax free, and
in 193 2 *h e shareholders must have been almost starving
on a dividend of 9 per cent, less tax.
Even the banks have their pittance. According to the
Investor's India Tear Books the Imperial Bank of India paid
a dividend of 16 per cent in 1927 and 12 per cent in 1931 .
The Allahabad Bank in 1920 and 1931 paid a 12 per cent
dividend plus a 6 per cent bonus. The Calcutta financial
journal Capital 84 tells us that the (British-owned) National
Bank of India paid an annual dividend of 20 per cent
for the nine years preceding 1932, in which year the Chair-
man announced a 20 per cent interim dividend plus “a
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 H
further dividend at the same rate less income tax.” 85
This still left sufficient profit to add £50,000 to the Officers’
Pension Fund.
Some other banks were even more fortunate. Capital
tells us that the Ilong Kong and Shanghai Banking Coi-
poration, which is a British-American Bank doing ex-
tensive business throughout Asia, paid 64 per cent annually
from 1924-28, 56 per cent for the next two years, and
48 per cent in 1931—32- 88 The Chartered Bank of India
(British-owned) paid 2o| per cent from 1924 to 193 0 *
The total value of British investments in India is difficult
to assess. In the words of Mr. C. B. Sayer, formerly Secretary
of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce:
“Most people have no real conception of either its
magnitude or diversity. . . - External capital enters
India in such a number of forms that any calculation
must be largely guesswork.” 87
Mr. Sayer estimated the total British capital invested
in India to be £573,000,000, including the stock of
Companies registered in and outside of India, and State
debts. £175,000,000 of this total represented commercial
investment. 88 _■
This means an enormous tribute in interest and dividends.
“Home Charges” alone in a typical year (1929-30)
amounted to £25,760,250, of which over twelve millions
represented interest on the public debt, 88 while nearly
six millions were spent in pensions and furlough charges
(i.e. extra holiday pay) for British officials. Judging by
the dividends already cited, 10 per cent is probably not
too high an average to take for the yield on commercial
investments, which would produce at this rate another
17.5 millions. We thus reach over 43 millions, which the
salaries of British officials would make up to an annual
sum of about £50,000,000 in a prosperous year.
Mr. Geoffrey Tyson, a member of the staff of Capital ,
affirms that
“It has been computed that every fifth man in Great
Britain is dependent, either directly or indirectly, on
our Indian connection for his livelihood.” 80
312 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
The same proportion was given by Lord Rothermere in
his statement that at least four shillings in the pound of
our national income came from this source — a fact which his
Lordship further elaborated by reminding his readers that:
“Without the profits which Great Britain draws from
her commerce with India the most ruthless Chancellor
of the Exchequer would be unable to raise enough
revenue to provide old-age pensions, unemployment
relief, education grants and all the other State allow-
ances which are regarded by their beneficiaries in this
country as part of the automatic routine of existence.” 91
Such is the system which V. H. Rutherford described
as “the lowest and most immoral system of Government
in the world — the exploitation of one nation by another.” 92
And here indeed is the explanation of Engels’ description
of the British working classes, enjoying with their masters
“the fruits of the British colonial monopoly.” 93 This
workers’ share of the fruits has been small; but, such as
it is, this share and the advantages of “democracy” have
been among the concessions which British capitalism has
made in return for the loyalty of a working class which has
never failed to support it in war. The history of the Roman
Republic has been repeated in terms of modern capitalism.
The future of imperialism will be increasingly concerned
with colonial investments. But the older economic interests
are still powerful, though of steadily diminishing im-
portance. For example, by a policy of imperial preference
the Indian consumer has been made to pay more heavily
for his purchases in order to assist the British manufacturer
— such has been the condition upon which tariffs have
been raised since the War to placate the interests of Indian
capitalism and British capital invested in India.
Thus the Steel Industry (Protection) Act of 1927 gave
preference in India to British steel and iron. 94 Inevitably
the principle was soon applied to cotton. The Excise Duty,
condemned even by the London Times 96 as “morally
indefensible,” had been removed after prolonged agitation,
and a cotton tariff slowly built up. In 1930 the Govern-
ment introduced a Tariff Bill into the Legislative Assembly
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 1 3
raising the duty on cotton piece goods to 15 per cent
ad valorem , with an additional 5 per cent duty on non-
llritish goods. 96 Lancashire protested against the rise, India
against the preference; but the Government had to reconcile
its need for revenue with two powerful capitalist interests.
The Tariff Bill was aimed principally at Japan, and was the
first of a series of discriminatory tariffs that reached 75 per
cent on non-British plain grey goods in 1933. 97
The 1930 Tariff Bill was passed in the Indian Legislative
Assembly by a piece of open blackmail, Sir George Rainy
telling the Indian propertied classes that further protection
for the Indian cotton industry was conditional upon their
endorsement of preference for Great Britain. 98 By a small
majority in India’s sham Parliament the Bill was there-
fore pushed through with the help of the Government’s
nominated bloc. This manoeuvre was an example of what
is called Indian Fiscal Autonomy.
A steadily rising tariff against non-Britisli cotton goods
failed, however, to exclude the products of Japan. Japan,
like Britain, produces finer goods than the Indian mills;
and the Indian Government has, in the main, concerned
itself with the competition between these two foreign
powers in the finer fabrics, seeking to assist Lancashire. 8 9
The Japanese mills however, unlike those of Lancashire,
are able to use the short staple cotton of India, and con-
sume most of India’s export of raw cotton. The Japanese
therefore retaliated against the Indian tariff policy by
declaring a boycott of Indian raw cotton, securing as a
result a trade agreement early in 1934 whereby the quota
of Japanese imported cotton goods was to stand in pro-
portion to Indian exports of raw cotton to Japan. 100
From these facts it will be observed that the interests
of British trade have been fostered as carefully by the
Government as the interests of British investors, but less
effectively for reasons beyond control. “Reciprocal”
tariff preferences which were extended by the Ottawa
Agreement have in point of fact favoured British trade
in every instance. Not only have Indian commodities been
more highly taxed than British, with smaller preferences
in the rates of taxation, 101 but these preferences have
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
been mainly confined in past years to a few luxury articles
on the one hand (such as Indian silk, saccharin, lace, etc.),
whilst on the other hand Indian preferences in such com-
modities as steel and cotton affect vast British industries.
In shipping the same discrimination applies. Though
at last an Indian shipping industry has come into being
once more, it is severely hampered by the monopoly of
all Government contracts, including especially the mail
service, which is still held by British companies. 102 Until
1922 these British companies, though handling all Indian
Government contracts, were actually exempt from the
Indian income tax. Nine per cent of the total profits of
British shipping comes from this carefully fostered
Indian trade, the freight bill in 1922 being estimated
at £14,000,000. 10 8 . t , , r
Discrimination has long characterised the purchases o
the Government, which imported goods to the average
annual value of over 7.5 millions sterling during the War,
and has since varied from 4.8 millions to 16 millions in
the value of its annual imports. The percentage of Govern-
merit foreign purchases which came from the United
Kingdom varied from 65 per cent to 93 per cent between
1919 and 1928, showing clearly the economic policy of
the Government. 104 An India Stores Department is main-
tained in London with the object of directing all Govern-
ment foreign purchases to Great Britain wherever possible,
and a study of the Board of Trade Journal will show that
tenders for Indian Government contracts are regularly
invited in Britain and India simultaneously. 106
The possibilities and uses of Governmental discrimina-
tion in favouring British trade are, in fact, almost in-
exhaustible. In the Indian States there is no doubt that
the advice and influence of British “Residents” is used
for this purpose, and “the whole system < higher and
technical education in the Indian universities and in trade
and commercial schools is based on British standards.
Hence British equipment, British machinery, British specifi-
cations, British methods are the usual standard. 106
Profits from the Exchange make up the total of British
commercial interests in India. In every transaction between
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 ! 5
India and any foreign country the rupee must first be
converted into sterling and thence into the currency ot
the country in question. On this transaction a small profit,
estimated at a little under 3 per cent of the amount in-
volved, is made by British banks. In addition to this staple
industry, British financiers have for years shown remark-
able skill in juggling with the rate of exchange to their
own advantage, an example being the purchase of Indian
silver in 1933. In this year, $10,000,000 was paid by Britain
to America in silver at 50 cents per ounce, this same silver
having been obtained from the Indian Government a
32.5 cents per ounce. The net profit on this dea was
nearly a million pounds. 107 ,
India has been described by a professor of the Sorbonne
as "the typical colony for exploitation”;”' and Sir George
Chesney, in stating his case for British rule, has outline^
the economic basis of its necessity to British capitalism.
He asks us to consider:
i-
“the array of vested interests involved, the capital sunk,
the numbers dependent on its returns, the importance
of Indian products to British industry, the number ot
British employed in the country either officially or com
mercially, 11 ' the array of persons on this side— mer-
chants, shippers, distributors, producers and consumers.
These interests are among the greatest sources of wealth
to our ruling class; and of this wealth the British worker
has had in the past his jackal’s share. Here also is the
explanation of the fact that those in this country who
most ingeniously contend that colonial possessions have
no economic value are among the most zealous defenders
of our own imperial interests. 111 ^ ,
But for the British workers the more sinister significance
of Empire is at last becoming apparent. In the past, as
we have observed, the dividends of imperialism have en-
riched our ruling class, which has found it worth while
to tax itself more heavily than any other capitalist class
in the world. And from these taxes have come the social
services which are the price of working class loyalty.
To-day, however, these dividends are drawn from colonial
3 1 6 the white sahibs in India
industries which compete increasingly with those of our
own country, Indian workers toiling ten hours a day for a
shilling or less, women and children working for starvation
wages — these are the competitors who will increasingly
influence the standard of living among British workers
while the Empire lasts. In this capitalists’ Paradise there
are few restrictive laws, there is no unemployment insurance
to be paid and no health insurance. 113 Finally, the re-
pressive powers of an autocratic government can always
be used, as they were at Meerut, to break up every attempt
at effective organisation among the workers. 114
Hence we may look to a future of increasing unemploy-
ment among British workers, whilst among those who retain
their jobs it must
k
“be realised that the level of wages and other costs of
production . . . must not differ widely from the corres-
ponding level in other countries.” 116
In plain words, those workers who do not share the fate
of the operatives in the jute mills of Dundee, whose jobs
have migrated to Bengal, may anticipate a steady reduction
of their wages and hours to the competitive conditions of
coolie labour. Never were the words of Engels more clearly
illustrated than in this demonstration that “a people which
oppresses another people cannot itself be free.” 116
In discussing the maladministration of India we have
avoided any detailed consideration of Government ex-
penditure, in view of the fact that the commonest com-
plaint — the relatively heavy expenditure on the Indian
Army — has now become so universally applicable that it
can no longer be regarded as peculiar to India. It may,
however, be remarked that one quarter of the army is
made up of British soldiers to the number of about 60,000,
who are maintained at the cost of the Indian peasant, and
that a British soldier costs between three and four times
as much as an Indian soldier. 117 The principal function
of the army is the subjection of “disturbed” areas and
the general protection of the Empire as a whole against
revolution or the forces of rival Powers. 118
Many years ago the Secretary of State for India pointed
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 1 7
out that India paid for all troops sent from Britain from
the moment of their departure, whilst Indian troops were
used by Britain and their ordinary pay charged to the
Indian exchequer. This, he said, was “the general prac-
tice.” 118 Hence the disproportionate Indian expenditure
on her army is part of the exploitation of the country lor
general imperial purposes. 120 In return for this, and an
annual grant of £ 100,000 towards British naval expenditure,
it is alleged that Britain protects India’s interests on the
high seas. This method of shutting the stable door when the
horse is stolen begs the question as to whether a conquered
and exploited country can be protected by its conquerors
against conquest or exploitation.
The Capitation Charges, by which India pays for the
training of British soldiers in Britain, were limited in 1926
to a lump sum of £1,400,000 per annum, and in 1932
reduced further and approximately balanced by an Im-
perial contribution to India’s “defence. 121
Since 1918 the “Indianisation” of the army is supposed
to have been progressing. In that year it was decided to
admit to Sandhurst ten Indian candidates every year to
qualify for the King’s Commission. 122 These Indian
officers, however, were not to be employed in the Artillery
or in the Tank or Engineering corps. 123 The Commander-in-
Chief of the Army in India is recently reported to have
explained “the reasons for the comparatively slow progress
which is being made in the Indianisation of the Indian
Army.” 124 Whatever may have been Sir Philip Chetwodc’s
explanation, Indians are perfectly well aware that Turkey
and Japan built up their armies in a few decades with the
help of a small number of foreign experts, and that one
reason for the pace of Indianisation is that an Indian army
would save the country some twenty-two million pounds
sterling per annum, which now go into British pockets.
The other reason is that no Indian army under Indian
officers could be relied upon indefinitely to act as the
instrument of foreign rule. 125 It is for this reason that the
British forces in India to-day include all the armoured
car companies and air squadrons and two-thirds of the
artillery batteries.
gi8 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Under the new constitution the army will remain free
from even the pretence of Indian control. As in the past,
the frontier tribes will be bombed at the Viceroy’s dis-
cretion, whilst British ministers express their horror at
acts of aggression by other Powers. And the same arguments
which were used to break up the Disarmament Con-
ference 126 will be made to justify future punitive expeditions
against those who offer resistance to the steady encioach-
ments of British imperialism. As in the past it will be
argued that there is some mystic resemblance between the
bombing of frontier villages and the functions of a police-
man on traffic duty in Piccadilly; while re-assuring head-
lines will continue to inform the British public that the
frontier tribes greeted our forces with “cheers of
gratitude .” 127
NOTES
i The facts given here came to the notice of the present author when
in the North Kheri Forests, where the United Provinces border upon
Nepal. At that time (1930) the discovery that “protection” was killing
the forests had recently been made. In the company of three Forestry
Officers the author drove along the border between Nepal and the
United Provinces, noting the contrast which was actually visible between
the forest lands on either side of the broad clearing that marked the
frontier. On the left (where the forest fires of Nepal had swept up to
this clearing) there, was little undergrowth and clear visibility for about
200 yards. Trees were of varying sizes. On the right it was possible
to see only about twenty yards through the thick scrub of the “ protected ”
forest land of India, and the trees were mostly of the same size— ‘very
few of them under forty years of age,” as one of the Forestry Officers
remarked. Shortly after this a Government Report (quoted in The
Leader , Allahabad, (Feb. 7th, 1930) referred to the fact that “the
burning of regeneration areas is having beneficial effects ; and men-
tioned experiments with deer-proof enclosures.
* Sir William Will cocks, of Assuan fame, is perhaps the greatest
authority in the world on irrigation. In a lecture at Calcutta University
m February, 1930, on “The Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal
and ^Application to Modern Problems,” Sir William concluded that
"after seeing the results of seventy years of abandonment of it there is
nothing before the country but to return to it.” According to Willcocks,
the system was introduced into Bengal by experts from the Euphrates
and the Nile, where the practice of irrigation began some 6,000 years
ago. Mr. Horace Alexander in The Indian Ferment (p. 1 78) notes an
attack on the Government (for its neglect of irrigation) made in the
Bengal Provincial Council in 1928.
* See Brailsford’s Rebel India (p. 151). In the Punjab, which vs “a
favoured Province, for it breeds men and horses for the Army, the
the brightest jewel 3 x 9
„,d policy which kept the Sikh, “loyar in the M^ny^sUll continue
afissaA “
Ancient irrigation systems _ i n dia {pp. 233, 247)* Rejected
2H-2I4). TU T^nse^for Government construction ofcanaUm
proposals of H. 1 . rrm P d volume Dutt shows how cana
1828 (pp. 310-312). In th ? * ^ « astines » realisation in 1815 that
reconstruction began with Lord p charge for water “would
land revenue could be increased an Jf . ^ ; ntcrests
make a most lucrative return* p. 166)^ But owing Qf ^
canal construction progressed much more slowly^^ ^ ^
6 Dutt (Vol II, pp* t72 3) ® basis of profits varying from 24 per cent
the land revenue was raised on a basis oi j^ron This was in
to 39 per cent on the capita °u ay ccor( ji n g to Sir Samuel Hoare
the middle of the nineteent c ry* s Vkar Barrage will be paying
(The Times, April 30th, 193=) the ^ *
5.83 per cent by I94 1 and 9*7 P . ^r_ r _ „ Parliamentary Com-
• Evidence of Sir Charles Treve yan _ ears j n India and held
mittec in 1873. Sir Char a a * He said that “nothing can be better
PP; Evidence of Sir Ar*ur «£ *££ ^"'ol Se
* Brailsford quotes Willcocks mth nr inciple works in the most
A glance at the map will show how th cut5 the waterways
notable case. The railway from Calcutta “ responsible for the
at right angles, and the e . mb ®^ a " d 0ris J. Eve^the bridging of
ST " '^c ^eS 1 course, resulting in viliages
^r q ‘s„ i, f-n .
r a ; P .haf ? Wf^ of th^cuhivated area of the country is dependent
upon a precarious rainfall” (he., » not prosperity -
11 Dutt (Vol II, p* 53®) skows t 3111 , d go millions sterling. In
of 1881-82 the total exports and imports valued 03 mm,
the famine of .900-1901 they rose to ‘ “ 0 ard silver, when he
15 The peasant, it is true, usedat one 1 t By demonetising
silver £ ^ovemmeThl^ti.e ”1.1 of these savings. (See Hynd-
man’s Bankruptcy of India.)
:: ^rrJctse h «,.i y ^ ^
the increase in Britain up to the t.me of d. ^ . givcn
" These figures obtarn^ by ® ilcs at each corresponding
in the Census figures by the area 9 ^ lo ig2I were
Census year. The actual figures per square mue v
320
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
British
England
Year
India
& Wales
France
1871
215
3°9
1 74
1 88 1
227
445
182
1891
229
497
185
1901
210
558
188
1911
223
618
189
1921
226
649
184
14 The 1921 Census of India shows that, between 1871 and 1921,
43.3 millions were added to the Indian population by "inclusion of
new areas,” while another 15.7 millions were estimated to have been
added by "Improvement of methods” (i.e.. Census methods). This
accounted for 59 millions out of a total increase of 112.8 millions,
leaving only 53.8 millions real increase. The area of British India
increased from 8Go,ooo square miles in 1871 to 1,096,171 square miles
in 1931. There was even an increase of territory between 1921 and 1931.
1 7 Figures from Population, by A. M. Carr-Saunders,
18 The Indian average population per square mile in 1921 was
only just over a third of the British average. Comparative Census
figures per square mile were:
1921 1931
Belgium . . . . 654 7 02
England and Wales . . 649 685
Netherlands .. .. 544 631
Germany , , . . 332 348
British India . . . . 226 248
19 The following figures show this increasing dependency on
agriculture:
Percentage of
population
Census dependent on
Year Agriculture
1891 61
1901 66
1911 72
1921 73
1931 66
The growth of new Indian industries since 1921 explains the 1931
figure and is the key to future development.
*° The Population of India , quoted by Harold Wright in Population.
11 England and France each increased by about 5 per cent between
1921 and 1931.
** Pages 1 15-1 16.
99 Dutt, Vol I, pp. 92-93.
14 See Philip Francis on the plight of Benares (Select Committee’s
Tenth Report, 1783. Appendix 7).
3 9 Under the Bengal Permanent Settlement. (See Dutt, Vol I, p. 94-)
** See Dutt, Vol I, p. 37 1 . He quotes the evidence of Robert Richards
(one of the Company’s servants) that in the nineteenth century land
was even assessed as cultivated which had "been nothing but jungle
within the memory of man.”
the brightest jewed 3 21
99 See India under Ripon , by W. S. Blunt, pp. 245-6, for the connection
between taxation and indebtedness.
Whitley Report, p. 229. The Report refers briefly to early laws
against usury which were "a prominent feature of various '
and national codes,” adding that "the leading religions of India affirm
the principle underlying them.” The Koran likens the usurer t° those
"whom Satan has infected by bis touch,” and explicitly forbids mury.
More recently the Government has done a little to limit usury in order
to save the peasant enough to pay his taxes.
19 Dutt (Vol I, p. 312) estimates that £225,000,000 was spent on
railways up to 1900, resulting in a loss to the taxpayer of £40,000,000,
and that £25,000,000 was spent on irrigation in the same period.
According to the Statistical Abstract of British India, the proportion even
by 1925-26 was only 96 erores of rupees on irrigation to 626 crores on
India Papers (London, 1820). Dacoity, he said, would be
preferable to the British judicial system.
Continuation to Mill’s History. Vol VII, p. 230. „
; »» Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, p. 4*4- The Government, he said sets
the people aside in the management of their own concerns much 1 more
than the Sepoy in the government of the army. Even ^the histonan,
H. H. Wilson, “the Indian public meant simply the Lurop <
resident in that country 1 (See Mill, Vol VIII, p. 414-)
' 99 Notes on Indian Affairs, by the Hon. F. J. Shore (London, 1837),
V °* 4 Much 5 of this information was later published by William
Digby, C.I.E., in Prosperous British India (London, 1901). It mak
appalling reading* t .
9S India of the Queen and other Essays , p. 15 1. Hunter was the greates
statistical expert of his time in the Indian services.
"Sir Charles Elliott, K.C.SX, quoted by William Digby in
Prosperous British India, p. 5°9-
87 India of the Queen, p. 134. _
•* Article by Sir Daniel Hamilton in the Calcutta Review, July, 191 *
89 This astonishing theory was put forward by Sir John Strachey in a
speech a. Calcutta^ jan. 37 th, .8 77 , the metdenee ol
taxation. The speech is quoted in Hyndman s Bankruptcy of India.
40 Mr. Yusuf Ali, writing in the Spectator (July 26th, 1930).
" This statement is made on the authority of Professor Shah of the
Bombay School of Economics and Sociology, in a private letter to
author (replying to questions on this subject). .
4* A Voyage to Suratt in the Year i68g (London, 1696)^ No man is
hereditary there, either to Estate or Honours,’ was Ovmgton s aston-
ished comment. , . .
48 Daily Telegraph, Feb. 28th, 1933- Taxation at anything approach-
ing British proportions would, of course, be infinitely more disastrous
in a country where the mass of people are already on the verge of
starvation and the weight of taxation falls far more on the poorer classes.
44 For example, a tax at 4s. in the £t would mean that for every ■ £5
paid in interest on a Government loan, £1 would return _ in rev ■
Consequently 5 per cent interest would be reduced m effect to 4 per cent.
322 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
By the present arrangement this rebate goes into the British Exchequer
as a large proportion of the National Debt.
; It is interesting to note that Sir William Hunter in The Indian
Empire (London, [ 1182 ) declared that “the collection of the land tax
forms t/ie main work of Indian administration (Our italics.) Hyndman
quoted Lord Lawrence as having said that good cattle had become
rarer during his time in India. Sir William Wedderburn attributed
this growing poverty largely to the system of land revenue and
assessment. (See Sir William Wedderburn and the Indian Reform
Movement , by S. K. RatclifTe.)
44 Dr. Oldfield considered that the villagers had “only half enough
to live upon.” (See The Ruining of India by William Digby, p. 159).
Ramsay MacDonald in The Awakening of India spoke as strongly.
47 Slater’s introductory note to Pillai’s Economic Conditions in India.
The Rev. J. Knowles of the London Missionary Society (as quoted in
Digby s Ruining of India ) gave an example where the average income
among 300 persons was a farthing per head per day. “They did not
live,” he said, “they eked out an existence.” Dr. V. H. Rutherford in
Modern India (pp. 85-108) gives much useful information on the con-
dition of the peasantry up to 1927.
4S Vol II, p. 207. The Commissioners compared this figure with
the British average, which they estimated roughly at ^95 per head.
*> Report for 1927-8 by Dr. C. A. Bentley, Director of Health for
the Province of Bengal. “Their vitality,” he added, “is now so under-
mined by inadequate diet they cannot stand the infection of foul
diseases.”
Journal of the East India Association, July, 1930, p. 197.
. “See for example Mr. J. B. Pennington’s statement in the Journal
cited above (p. 201): “Give him reliable irrigation, and I doubt if
any agriculturist in the world gets more out of the land than the Indian
ryot as I knew him sixty years ago.”
4 2 Some Aspects of the Dalai Cultivation in Lyallpur District of the Punjab,
by Professor Stewart. Mr. M. L. Darling, in his book The Punjab Peasant
in Prosperity and in Debt shows the chronic agricultural indebtedness in
this Province.
** H. N. Brailsford in Rebel India (pp. 28-30). Mr. Brailsford attri-
butes largely to this fact the movement which swung the peasants in
193° behind the National Congress “as its staunchest supporters.”
His figures are borne out by the official statistics published by the
Diicctor-Genera! of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics at Calcutta.
By > 933 _ 4 (according to the Economist's Indian supplement of Dec. 12th,
* 93 ^) crops had fallen by 53.4 per cent from the 1928-9 figure. Pro-
fessor P. G. Ihomas in The Economic Journal (Sept., 1935) says that
during the fourteen months between October, 1929, and December,
most of India’s staple prices fell more than 40 per cent.” A
report in the Investors Chronicle of April 1st, 1933 i says *’20 per cent to
50 per cent less than pre-war prices.”
64 Manchester Guardian, Jan. 17th, 1935* (Leading article.)
Y The Economic Journal, September, 1935, pp. 471-2. “The instinct
o the Indian peasant, writes Professor Ihotnas, 11 has served the country
better than all the intricate reasoning of the economist and the adminis-
trator.” This, of course, is only half the truth; for foreign rule and
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL, 3 2 3
poverty have led to widespread apathy among the peasants which
(in turn) fosters the system which creates it. See Rebel India, pp. 128-9.
For the effects of landlordism sec the Report of the Royal Commission
on Agriculture, p. 425.
** Though proportionately small, it must not be forgotten that the
number of Indian workers in industries exceeds 15,000,000.
57 The Indian Peasant Uprooted, by Margaret Read. Preface by the
Rt. Hon. J. H. Whitley, Chairman of the Royal Commission on Labour
in India. (London, 1931.)
88 Figures for Calcutta were not available, but the Whitley Com-
missioners thought that overcrowding there was “probably unequal cc
in any other industrial area of India.”
89 Rebel India, p. 59. He noted also the size of the dwellings, ten to
twelve feet square, without windows or chimneys.
8# The Times, Sept. 8th, 1933. ,
81 Rebel India, p. 62. According to Brailsford, these “black holes
supply 400 persons with three water taps “and stinking privies at a
distance of 200 yards.”
82 The Labour Woman , February, 1 933-
8J Rebel India, p. 105.
81 The Whitley Commissioners compared these figures with the rate
of 51 per 1,000 for England and Wales in 193 0 * The British rate has
since fallen even lower, and the Public Health Report for i93~ s t a ^ t s
that India’s rate of infantile mortality is the highest in the woild.
8 8 Such figures as these make Mr. Gandhi’s opposition to birth
control appear almost criminal* It is, indeed, remarkable that his
enemies generally neglect this aspect of his philosophy whilst attac mg
him at far less vulnerable points.
88 See Mr. A. Pearse’s Report on the Colton Industry of India, also the
resolution on this subject passed in 1926 by the AU-India Conference
of Medical Research Workers, which stated that the loss of cfiicicnt )
from preventable malnutrition and disease was not less than 20 per cent.
This resolution also recorded the view that deaths from preventa 1 c
disease amounted to 5 or 6 millions annually.
87 See Chapter XI.
88 “Very young children,” says the Report, “sleep alongside their
mothers on piles of wool, their faces and clothes covered with^ germ-
laden dust.” The Commissioners found “reason to believe that
corporal punishment was used in the case of smaller children, and that
parents did not protest because they were in debt to the employers.
88 These figures were given by the Chairman of the Chartered Bank
of India, Australia and China at its general meeting {Daily Telegraph,
March 30th, 1933). They include both foreign and indigenous cloth
consumed in India, and are therefore unaffected by the boycott of
foreign goods. Professor Thomas shows that the Indian consumption
of sugar per caput also fell from an average of 7.7 lbs. in 192^-30 to
5.8 lbs. in 1932-33 (i.e. by 24 per cent). See I he Economic Journa ,
September, ! 935 > P* 477 - . . ,
10 Brailsford in Rebel India says 13*000,000* The estimate given here
is the lowest of those usually quoted*
71 Tliis figure is given by Sir William Hunter in The Indian Empire
Y
THE WHITE SAIIIBS IN INDIA
324
(p. 667). In England and Wales the average expectation of life is
steadily rising, and stands to-day at about 55 years.
73 Keats’ Isabella. Stanzas 14, 15 and 16 form a magnificent indict-
ment of economic imperialism in any age.
13 Miss Beauchamp in British Imperialism in India (p. 101) cites figures
from the Investor's India Tear Book (1929-30) showing that Tea Companies
have paid the following dividends:
Company
Divd.
Years
Bishnauth Tea Co. . ,
4 2 i%
1927
30 %
1928
New Dooars Tea Co.
225%
1924
Chulsa Tea Co.
3 ° %
1923-7
1J J? * * * *
75 %
*928
Jhanzie Tea Assn., Ltd.
40% to
45 %
1924-8
Memoirs of my Indian Career (London,
i8 93 >) Vo1
II, p. 16
7 5 This change of economic policy, already noted, was due to many
causes. Among these were the pressure of competition (necessitating
cheaper methods of production) the need to make concessions to Indian
capitalism, and considerations of imperial war preparation. The last
point was specifically mentioned in the Report of the Industrial Com-
mission which was set up after the War and re-emphasised in a report
by H. M. Trade Commissioner in India entitled Prospects of British Trade
in India at the Close of the War, (1919).
78 This principle has been applied in the most minute detail. See,
for example, the following Memo. (No. F 215-9-30, dated 12th Sept.,
1930) signed by Mr. I. S. Bingemann, District Magistrate of 24-Parganas
to the Departments under his control: "In future in making purchases
preference is to be given to British goods. Except for special reasons
no American goods are to be purchased. For example, the Imperial
typewriter, which is a British machine, is to be given preference.”
Questioned regarding this circular by the Indian Chamber of Commerce,
the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bengal replied that it was not
a matter of public importance regarding which Government would enter
into any further correspondence. (Letter No. 18060, p. Dec. i8th, 1930.)
77 Resolution S. 217, Department of Industries and Labour.
78 There are also two centres of this industry in the Madras Presidency.
Though under British control, a majority of the shares is now held by
Indians.
78 The Economic Development of India , p. 282. Commenting on these
figures Mr. Brailsford in Rebel India (p. 145) says that he calculates these
mills during the early post-War years paid £100 in profits for every
they paid in wages.
80 This Company paid 100 per cent in 1919 plus a bonus of 300 per
cent, though the greatest profits in the industry were made during the
actual war years. Even in the depression years we learn from Capital
(Jan. 26th, 1932) that in 1931 over 10 per cent was paid by thirty-four
jute firms, of which twenty-two paid over 20 per cent, and two as high
as 40 per cent. Workers’ wages meanwhile averaged about 4s. 6d.
per week.
81 Dividend figures for coal aFe given from the Investor’s Guide in
Capital (Calcutta), January 26th, 1932.
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 2 5
” See Th \ hdian The Financial Editor commented
88 Sunday Express , Feb. 8th, 1931- . h! to price,” but it
that "as usual! the Russian P^U^nTs^h^tSmpa^ had "the
was not necessary to cut 1 ■ t ^j s country which shuts
benefit of an agreement with the consumers in this cou y
out Russian manganese.”
'.‘.CThfa^cf .he
March 31st, 1932 (The Spectator, Apn announced that the 20 per cent
The Investor's Review (April bth, 1933; . thc chair-
dividend was still being n,a,,na.ned not„nK,^^^ difficult."
man said, “that trading conditions during the past year
•* Capital, Jan. 26th, I 93 2 - - considered this figure
- Financial Times, Jan. 9th, 1930. Mr. Saycr considered
a conservative estimate. _ reat majority of
and ,his is !tm
‘T. Sterling Debt hassinceinc^d.
(India Supplement, Decembe^ >^ 9 ^ 8 ood I t 3 £ 3 l 6 , 000,000.
1926 an 193 , an Geoffrey Tyson (with an Introduction by the
»° Danger in India, by Ceoltrey y \ figures given
Earl of Lytton), This and the pUs
r bOVe d ? Bn'S. 'rnopofy of Indian shipp, ng.
from the British monopo y Dro bablv the bluntest admission
’ ‘ D °f I U Ho^n’s thesb in Work and Wealth (p. , 56) that we
ever made of J. A. Hobson “western white nations may, as
are moving towards an epoch wl e dependent upon the labour
regards the means of ^vehhood, b d a as in Roman times,
fre r X m ^mrZur r^ £
;U S r “cS so ffit ffi?y acquiesce in imperialist citation.
» Modern India, by V, H. Rutherford, <^ n ^> ^ a ll
89 Letter to Kautsky, Sept. I2ti, • J, ^ ^ development in Britain
attributed the backwardness of wo ^ com parison it may be
largely to the snares of Bn is _ ^r'-r-rnal social reforms corresponded
noted that in Germany the perio °, 1 Thus a docile working class
-js vt,
Carnegie Endowment Pubhcati- an, ie „ by 9 5kins and hides exported
rebate - (Sce
Xtt ^r the ^ration of the Cotton
E ^1 Z^Tc^lltian in t , . Wj- t
SSfcSiJSr' to to kcpt^lower in the intcrcsB of Lancashire.
326 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
The Labour Bulletin of August, 1931, pointed out that Wedgwood Benn
telegraphed the Viceroy in February, 1930, placing before him the
Lancashire point of view, but that the Indian Government had to face
a deficit of £9,750,000 on a budget of about £102,000,000.
67 Manchester Guardian , June 7th, 1933.
18 As explained in previous chapters, the Legislative Assembly has
no real control. When in 1924 the Assembly rejected the Budget
because the unpopular salt tax had been doubled, the Viceroy passed
it by “certification.” In this case the Assembly was offered the alterna-
tives of either passing the Bill as it stood or accepting “something
worse.’ ’ It was powerless to put forward any alternative because no
rejection of the Bill could remove the ministers. The National Congress
was at this time unrepresented in the Assembly, owing to the boycott policy.
»» By the raising of the tariff in 1933 to 75 per cent on non-British
plain greys, the difference in duties was increased to 50 per cent ad
valorem, as between British and non-British products, ( Manchester
Guardian , June 7th, 1933.)
i00 TA« Economic Journal, September, 1935. Pages 479-80. (Article by
P. G. Thomas.) The reciprocal nature of Indo-Japanese trade in raw
cotton and cotton piece goods aptly illustrates the entirely artificial
nature of the Lancashire interest which the Government fosters.
101 Thus, for example, when the Indian Cotton tariff in 193° stood
at 15 per cent on British products, Indian silk was taxed in Britain
at the rate of 27.5 per cent. The British tax in this case was five-sixths
of the full rate for non-Empire goods, whilst the Indian tax represented
only three-quarters of the full rate. On November 13th, 1936, a resolu-
tion was passed in the Indian Legislative Assembly demanding the
termination of the Ottawa Agreement, but the Government has since
announced its intention of disregarding this resolution.
101 All Government stores from Britain must, under the present
orders, be carried in British ships.
108 The Wealth and Taxable Capacity of India , by K. T. Shah and
K. J, Khanibata.
10 * A full table showing the Imports of Government stores between
1913 and 1929 is given in the Carnegie Endowment Publication,
International Competition in the Trade of India (quoted above) on p. 202
(Appendix Z). Figures and percentages given here do not include the
period 1930-36. The percentages of Government imports which came
from the U.K. in the successive years 1919-28 were: 74, 93, 80, 88,
80, 82, 74, 70, 65, 74,
10s ]? ven more remarkable in the discrimination they betray are
some of the advertisements regarding personnel. Thus an advertisement
inserted by the Indian State Railways in the Daily Herald of August 3rd,
1932, inviting candidates to apply for a post, stated that they “must be
British subjects of non-Asiatic domicile.”
101 International Competition in the Trade of India (pp. 1 I 5 » 11 7 )* The
same authority points out that British Companies in India naturally
deflect a great deal of trade to Britain because the directors arc “closely
associated” with British manufacturers, whilst other foreign firms in
India use British goods because their employees arc more familiar
with them. During the boycott of British goods in 1 93 ° two Indian
manufacturers complained to the present author that non-British
THE BRIGHTEST JEWEL 3 2 7
machinery had a curious habit of getting damaged on its way through
the Customs Department. interim. The
107 The price of silver had, of tec ” bought silver from his
question raised, however, is why t and in full knowledge
“ward” during a slump in that commodity, anu
that the price was going to . . A Ecmangeon.
108 America and the Race for World Domini » V * L [ f on 1QI n,
100 India under Experiment, by Sir George Chesney, Loi J
P - A 9 » Official salaries will te found in “
discrepancy between official sal *”“ ™ Viceroy . His salary is £19,000
peasants is illustrated by f. C t ,u British Prime Minister) and it
L year (about four times that f British Prime
represents the income of abou 5 ’ ^ the average British income.
Minister has a salary of about 50 Members of Governor-
Other salaries are; £ 4 . 9 °° to
Generals Council, £6, o< , Allowances ” are additional.
£g,ooo; Chief Justice, £ 5 > 3 °°- D olitical and economic
in Technically India is not a colony, thfcolontal model,
characteristics of its admmistraUon a ^ n “ y the value of colonies to
The author has here in mind those wi h y tt „ ssess ; ons .
Germany but show no haste to be nd ° f Insurance, Unemploy-
111 In the British budget, grants c > Contributory Pensions,
ment Insurance and Assistance an^Defence.” With
etc., form the biggest item after * ^ £100,000,000
local and supplementary grants they wm toiai
“ A?tJ lh e Whitley Report, pp. 33-6 -d *6 5 a
note that "sickness is an ™P°' ,a, ^ CO n n t " p , 7 g her than in Western
and that its incidence is substantia y S
“”"‘ r On".he Other side it
aSSSSK deals with this subject
Chairman of Barclays Bank, at the shareholder annualmecung^^ 93 ^
11* This saying applies also, of course, to w i ., 0ur pe ople,”
paid by the workinjg class for teprivi eg “ W U1 soon begin to
wrote W. S. Blunt in his Diaries (Nov. 20tn, ioyy; ire without
understand ^ Anl bTrealised when British fascism
Sscs"lndian P cpoys to crush be^Tamcablc Afor,
the Moors in Spain. Nor would major party
like the Moors, they have had not g g r aS cist promises if
in the “Home” country, and will naturally fall tor i
“socialists' 1 continue to deny t lem rce ° t* ort A British officer
11 7 This is the estimate gtven in the : Simoi ^ twenty-four
costs six times as much as an Indian office r, a c ^as muc
Indian soldiers, or more, accordmg to his ra ifc Gommission that
118 Lord Lansdowne admUtedXore th Y { ni upon
“the Indian Army is organised with a view 10 f
328
the WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
operations which have nothing to do with the internal policy of the
country.”
119 Welby Commission, 1895, Vol II, p. 293.
120 Mr. Arnold Toynbee, in his Survey of International Affairs , gave
the following list of percentages of military expenditure in the national
budgets of various countries in 1929:
* *
Percentage of
Expenditure on
the Army :
45*89
26.57
23.46
! 9*75
iG.oq
J 4-75
7.16
India
Japan . ,
Italy , .
France
U*S.A,
Gt. Britain
Germany (pre-Hitler)
Mr. F. G. Pratt, I.G,S., has gone further into this question in a more
recent publication entitled The Military Burden on India.
1 hese charges stood in 1 920 at ^28.5 for every soldier sent to India,
122 Indians are, of course, still eligible for a "Viceroy’s Commission*”
But (as the Simon Report points out) "the holder of a Viceroy’s Com-
mission - , * is lower in rank and command that the most newly joined
of British subalterns," (Vol I, p, 10 I.)
113 The Air Force has also been kept an exclusive preserve for British
officers, owing to its strategic importance in case of revolt,
124 Sir Philip Chetwode’s speech to Conservative M.P.s at the House
of Commons (Daily Telegraphy March 31st, 1936), It is interesting to
observe that Sir Philip so well understands the true position under the
new reforms that he saw fit to attack Indian nationalists and their
right even to criticise the Government’s military policy in a speech
reported in the Daily Herald of Sept. 7th, 1934*
2$ The British troops constitute a foreign army of occupation and
behave as such. The Daily Telegraph (Oct. 21st, *935) reported the
case in which a number of British soldiers were punished for a raid on
the village of Penda on July 17th, 1935, which resulted in the death
of one villager and the injury of twelve others* The soldiers, said the
Reuter cable, "mistook the village for Karodi, inhabitants of which had
assaulted a soldier the night before*”
, 1 ** ^ee The Times of July 8th, 1932, reporting Mr* Baldwin’s speech
m the House defending the retention of bombing ’planes and of tanks
which cannot be regarded as specifically ofTcnsive weapons,” British
insistence on this point, with special regard to "policing” India and
other parts of the Empire, is generally acknowledged to have been the
reason for the failure of the Disarmament Conference at least to have
abolished the bombing ’plane,
127 A ews- Chron icle 7 Aug. ist, 1933 * The cheers on this occasion were
1 , ^ men,” apparently of the Halimzai,
which was later described as "one of the tribes receiving Government
subsidies as agents in keeping the peace.” The gratitude of the bribed
headmen was natural enough; but there were presumably others who
did not cheer, including the Indian peasants who paid the bill and the
Mohmands, whose homes were being destroyed.
CHAPTER XV
LAW AND ORDER
It is important to understand the methods of repression
which are used when it is necessary to defend the interests
which were briefly outlined in the last chapter. We are
here confronted with the greatest of difficulties, arising
from the fact that in most instances the almost unanimous
testimony of Indian non-official witnesses is flatly contra-
dicted by the Government, which generally bases its ver-
sion on the ipse dixits of the accused officials, these being the
“men on the spot.” 1
Much can be gathered, however, from the actual laws
and ordinances of the Government, as officially published,
and from official statements and statistics. Even here
there is some difficulty arising from curious discrepancies
in official statements. Thus, in February, 1932, Sir
Samuel Iloare informed the House of Commons that
i,g 1 2 persons were imprisoned in the North-West Frontier
Province and 548 in Bombay. At the same time Sir James
Crerar stated officially in Delhi that there were 10,000
prisoners in the North-West Frontier Province and 750 in
Bombay. 2
No less confusing were some statements made in 1930
by Lt.-Colonel W. G. Hamilton, late Inspector-General
of Prisons in Bengal. Lecturing to the East India Associa-
tion he made the unqualified assertion that “transportation
to the Andamans has been abolished.” After the paper
was read, Colonel Hamilton’s attention was drawn to the
fact that there were still some 8,000 prisoners on these
islands, and confronted with this awkward and indisput-
able fact, the Colonel then admitted that owing to the
congestion of the Punjab jails “prisoners from the Punjab
were still being sent to the Andamans.” 3
In considering the categorical nature of the Colonel’s
original statement and the explanation given for the dis-
329
330 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
crepancy, it is of further interest to note that in 1936 the
Andamans were still being used as a penal settlement,
with no apparent prospect of their abandonment. On
December 21st, 1932, Mr. Butler, the Under-Secretary
of State for India, stated in the House of Commons that
seventy-five convicts, mostly from Bengal, were being
transferred to these islands, and that the “area of the gaol
where these prisoners were to be lodged was now free from
malaria.” 1 In June, 1933, however, conditions in the
Andamans were still so bad that over fifty prisoners at
Port Blair began a hunger strike, from which three of
them died. 5 Finally in February, 1934, the Ananda Bazar
Patrika, a Bengal paper, was heavily fined for publishing
an article criticising the Government for sending prisoners
to the Andamans, because such criticism brought the
Government into “hatred and contempt.” In view of the
Government’s own previous decisions and such announce-
ments as Colonel Hamilton’s, the hatred and contempt
would appear to have been well earned. 6
On the general subject of Indian jails it may be noted that
the Bengal Jail Code allows for the continuous imposition
of bar fetters on prisoners for six months, as a punishment. 7
In 1935 political prisoners in Alipore Central Jail were
punished by separate confinement with bar fetters for
three months, and their case was taken up by members of
the Independent Labour Party in the House of Commons.
This publicity resulted in correspondence between the
Howard League for Penal Reform and the India Office,
during which the Howard League pointed out that, under
the rules recommended by the League of Nations, instru-
ments such as bar fetters were held to be undesirable except
as a “temporary restraint of violent prisoners,” that they
should be removed as soon as possible “and should not be
applied again unless the prisoner recommences his vio-
lence.” 8 Without disputing the Geneva recommendation,
the India Office replied to the Howard League that:
“The punishments of standing handcuffs and cross-
bar fetters have been abolished in the Central Provinces,
but elsewhere Local Governments have, for the reasons
DAW AND ORDER
331
riven in paragraphs 229-231 of the report of the Indian
JT Commiftee! .9.9-*°. felt it necessary to retun
these punishments.” s
Reference has already been made to the system of con-
vict warders, and its inevitable results. 10 The general
brutality of Indian jail administration may be stud.e 1
detail in revelations which arose from the prosecution of
two British jailers in December, .932. far caus.nggncvou
hurt to an Indian prisoner at Nasik Jail. As a fin
comment on the jails, which have become the normal
abodes of Indian patriots, it is significant that an American
observer, who was indignant at Miss Mayo’s general charge
of uncleanliness against Indians, remarked in .93. *ȣ he
most revolting place he had seen in India was the lat.ine
in the Delhi Jail. 10 ,
In one of his lucid moments Mr. Macdonald once wrote.
“A power of repression habitually enjoyed tends to develop
a habU of mind in the Government which regards all
effectively troublesome criticism as sedition. • • ■
last chapter of bureaucracies is repression. They p
away like an old monarch driven from his throne, hur mg
accusations of sedition against his approaching successor
The author of these truisms, written m criticism of the
Indian Press Act of 191° and ‘he Criminal Law (Amend-
ment) Act of .919. was destined to become the instrument
of his own prophecy and the butt of his own joke
By the Bengal Ordinance of November, 1931, the Govern
ment of Bengal was given authority to con ^ ndeer “ V _
nroDertv— movable or immovable— either without con
pensation or with such compensation as the local ofhcia
considered “reasonable.” Members of the public could
be conscripted for the maintenance of what was euplitni-
isitically termed “law and order.” Collective fines wei
permitted in areas “concerned in the commission of
scheduled offences.” Special tribunals of three were se
up by which alleged offenders could be tried in secret
and condemned to death or transportation for Ufc by *
majority verdict of two judges against one. No complete
Zrds were to be kept by these Courts but there was to
332 TIIE WiiltE SAlUBS IN INDIA
be “a memorandum only of the substance of the evidence.”
Accused persons could be tried in their absence; and,
finally, against the orders and sentences of these special
tribunals there was to be no appeal to the High Court. 14
It must be remembered that, frightful as this ordinance
was, it only carried to an extreme the principles upon which
the existing law in India was based. Mr. Brailsford has
even remarked in Rebel India that the Indian Penal Code is
“so drastic that one wonders why emergency ordinances
are ever necessary.” It is also an interesting commentary
on the interest which England takes — or is allowed to
take — in the Empire of which she is so proud, that 'Mr.
Gandhi when in London was quite unable to obtain a copy
of the text of this ordinance except from the files of the
India Office. An Indian province with a population
greater than that of England and Wales had been deprived
of the last vestiges of liberty and security; and all that
the British public knew was that there was “trouble” in
Bengal, and that stern and righteous officials had taken
stern and righteous measures.
Ordinances of similar nature followed rapidly all over
India, culminating in the almost fatuous viciousness of
Ordinance No. 5 of 1932, which made it an illegal offence
to say: “Don’t buy British” to a person entering a shop
or to “molest” such a person. Molesting was defined so
as to include the making of a gesture of entreaty, such as
raising the hands in an attitude of prayer. 1 5 This deliberate
attempt to stamp out the Indian movement for supporting
home industries actually corresponded with a big Tariff
and “Buy British” campaign in England, where the same
sentiments that were persecuted as high treason in India
were regarded as the most fashionable form of patriotism.
To conceal the results of such legislation the Press was
(and still is) carefully muzzled. On January 13th, i 93 2 >
the Bombay Government warned the Press against “Any
immoderate criticisms of the Government or Government
officials . . . any photographs of persons taking part in
Congress activities or of any incidents relating to such
activities.” Such incidents clearly included baton charges
by the police. The penalty threatened was fine and
LAW AND ORDER
333
imprisonment for editor, printer and publisher. and the
Government Circular ^explained that its fast of offences
was “not exhaustive. 46 District Magistrate
At Allahabad two days later the Distn B
issued a similar warning, explicitly stating
sidered pictures of Mi charges ' obj-uon^ ( -.
typical instance being the order of the District Magnate
« r ^rSbuildings. %£*£*%
and money were confiscated in innumerable a es i L
full extent of repressive power exercise my
order i ssu ed on January 17th, 1932, by the sud u
sional Magistrate at Ellore in Madras, forbidding pcop
■ among other things to have.
“anv informal talks in furtherance or in sympathy with
the Congress activities, including the closure of shops
or subscriptions to Congress or supply of provi-
sions to them.” 18
Lest it should be imagined that the men entrusted with
these enormous powers were just and discriminating pe .
ons who for some reason found it impossible to function
prope'rly 0 except in secret tribunals or under cover 0 a
P P d Pr , ‘ we have fortunately an expression of the
“ of t h’e S e bureaucrats. The following quotation
from one who claims to understand revoiationary mentahiy
is at least revealing regarding the mentality of the
: As ^Martial tw
TribuLh or 19.9, I may, I think, claim to know some-
thing of the mentality of the Indian revo ^iona y* *
“ Let our politicians bear ever in mind that it is utte iiy
useless to endeavour to placate a snake. Gandhi and
his friends should be deported.
334 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
An interesting commentary on the functions of justice
in India was made in. 1931 by a judge of the High Court
at Lahore, when Mr. Feroz Chand, the socialist editor of
The People appealed against the decision of a local magis-
trate. When it was pointed out that the magistrate had
refused to allow defence evidence or arguments and had
assumed the role of prosecutor, the Judge replied: “ But
that every magistrate in this country does , and has got to do.” 20
The effect of repression in 1933 was described by many
English witnesses. Mr. C. F. Andrews in an article in the
India Review described the state of terror he found in Bom-
bay, and the rigid censorship of the Press, “ Any report,”
he said, “however true, which brought the Government
into contempt, would render the editor liable to imprison-
ment.” 21 In the same paper the Rev. Magnus Ratter,
who had returned from a sixteen-months* tour of India,
commissioned by the Unitarian and Free Christian
Churches, gave a similar picture. The ordinances, he
said, had “caused intense suffering while creating an
even more bitter hatred.” Mr. Verrier Elwin told of
the parades of military force and aircraft, of lathi charges
and innocent people shot by the police and military, of
Red Cross volunteers and nurses beaten while rendering
first aid, of unconscious men savagely kicked as they lay
on the ground and of boys stripped and flogged in the open
court. As to the censorship, he said: “Nobody can trust
his newspaper.” 22
By a series of ordinances from January to July, 1932,
many of which have since been embodied in statutory law,
the powers assumed in the Bengal Ordinance of November,
1931, were applied throughout the greater part of British
India with further refinements of tyranny. They were
measures which “had they been directed against one
small part of our own island, would have roused in Parlia-
ment and the country fierce opposition and passionate
debate.” 23 Even Sir John Maynard, a former Finance
Minister of the Punjab Executive Council, said that “the
Devil is loose again in India” and condemned the Govern-
ment for driving India into the arms of “the extremists.” 24
Dr. Edmond Privat described India as existing “in
law and order
335
a state of siege ” He found the country ‘‘like Russia
under the Czars” and described the beating by Bntib
police of peaceful onlookers at Congress procession^ The
lathis used, he said, were metal-bound an Verrier
broomstick.” 26 On the North-West Frontier M o Vern
Elwin investigated the violent of the I ^ JS
die Moslem mass organisation (affiliated to th g )
which was organising the people in their struggle f
independence. His report (which described among o he,
of leading men if they refused to disclose the pities of Red
Shirt leaders) was published in the Free Press Journal ot
Bombay “ Though some of the worst atrocities were
omitted from this report, which no other P a P e ^. d " if ^
to publish, the editor of the Free Press Journal and h
were arrested the following morning. , r .*
Even the « parte “official” reports from the fronder
were sufficiently grim. A statement by the Chief Co
niissioner issued from Peshawar on December 31st, 1931.
announced the “apology" of 150 Red Shirts arrested m
the Kohat District and spoke of a Red Shirt leade „
“pulled down the Congress flag with his own hands
Similar official statements followed, all indicating either a
miraculous conversion of the people or a state of terror.
Villages where Congress meetings were held, where pic ' e ing
was carried out, or from which pickets had been sent
Peshawar, were fined collectively under Section 26/ , of
Ordinance 13.” Firing was admitted at Kohat,
among the casualties “most unfortunately a woman was
accidentally killed by a stray bullet ” ; after which .appar-
ently the troops “met with a cordial reception. Villager
in the area readily admitted their error of the previous two
days and asked for pardon,. 28 w _
The Daily Telegraph special representative was soon able
to report “a new spirit of dazed respect” on the frontiei.
“Unrest,” he said, “lingers in the Peshawar area. . . ■
But plentiful route marches and flag-showing and talks
bv the military with the villagers are rapidly correcting
this situation.
33^ THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
To implement the ferocious ordinances applied to Bengal,
Sir John Anderson, of Black and Tan fame, was sent out as
Governor. 30 Of this man, it is interesting to note, Mr.
Harold Laski prophesied that “India will be glad of his
coming. >J Mr. Laski saw in this administrator of a system
modelled on fascism “a representative of a quality in British
public life too little recognised by the man in the street” 31
About a year later a man who happened to be in the street
during one of the frequent lathi charges in Calcutta, wrote
to Sir John Anderson describing the police attack on the
Forty-Seventh Session of the Indian National Congress,
This observer — an American citizen — saw “several women
struck quite fiercely over the shoulders, necks and backs”
before he was driven from the spot by “an indiscriminate
lathi charge,” 32
In some cases police excesses have been condemned by
the magistrates. 33 An example of this was the assault
by police, led by a British officer, on Professor Sayal and
his students at the D.A.V. College, Lahore, in 1932. In
this instance an unprovoked assault was made during the
professor’s lecture, and a successful action for damages was
brought against the police. More often, however, there
has been no redress. Under Anderson’s administration in
Bengal it was olficially admitted by Mr. Prentice in the
Legislative Council that a British police officer had struck
a political prisoner while the latter was being taken hand -
cujjed to jail. No action was taken against the officer and
further information was refused in the Bengal Council. 34
In the South, where Congress was supposed to have little
support, repression was equally brutal. Mr. Peter Freeman
described unprovoked attacks on peaceful demonstrations
by police “armed with heavy lathis” who “beat merci-
lessly” and even attacked people already lying unconscious
on the ground. The police, he said, were watched and
encouraged by English sergeants. 36 Mr. Freeman’s state-
ments were automatically denied by the Government, but
(as usual), an enquiry was refused. About the same time
an English missionary, Dr. Forrester Paton, was assaulted
by two British police sergeants in the streets of Madras
because he was wearing Indian homespun cloth. 34 The
LAW AND ORDER
337
sergeants, having beaten him with lathis , called a water-
cart and drenched him with green water from a hose-
pipe. The following day he was arrested on ^ncated
charges, and a prosecution was commenced which die
Government later withdrew for lack of any evidence.
Unlike thousands of Indians who suffered in the same
manner, Dr. Paton had a white skin, wealthy relations m
Britain, and a brother-in-law who was a Member of Parlia-
ment In a letter to Dr. Paton's brother-in-law (Sir James
Duncan Miller, K.C, M.P.), Sir Samuel Hoare «P lam 5 d
that “a mistake had been made. It had indeed, for
the police bullies little knew when they assaulted Dr.
Paton that they had challenged money and power. Paton
himself described Indian police methods as
“such that I am sure no crowd in an industrial centre
in England or Scotland would stand without becoming
violent.”
The villagers, said Dr. Paton, “are cowed by - fear; they are
afraid to go into the town m homespun doth. W
they were beaten it was not a mistake.
Another missionary— an American named Gordon Hal-
' st ead— was ordered to leave India “in consequence of
activities held to be harmful.”* 3 In Calcutta the Amrita
Bazar Patrika was fined nearly £400 for printing an
article by Professor George pointing out that the doctrine
of non-violence had something to do with Christian prin-
ciples. ” 41 Even the ashrams , where instruction in spinning
and weaving had been given to the villagers, were raidet
bv police and the looms destroyed. In her account ol
one of these ashrams , Miss Ellen Wilkinson recalls the con-
trast between this “scene of desolation” and a Parliamen
where members who had filed out during a discussion on
India returned in force to discuss “a juicy scandal about
the Post Office.” 42 . . T . Tnoo
No better account exists of repression in India in 1 93 -
than the Report of the India League Delegation, a complete
and well-documented survey which was published with a
preface by Bertrand Russell. 43 One member of this dele-
gation has recorded the extraordinary difficulties expen-
338 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
enced by them in obtaining this information — how the
police arrested their messengers, stopped villagers from
coming to see them, beat and dispersed crowds awaiting
their visit and stood by them during interviews to intimi-
date witnesses. 44 Meanwhile Sir Samuel Hoare, whose
photograph had adorned the Press in various poses on the
tennis court and the skating rink (what time he was too
busy to meet Dr. Privat and others who had first-hand news
of India) announced that “the only war between England
and India was the cricket match.” 46
In spite of the fact (among other instances) that a cable
sent from India to Mr. Tom Williams, M.P., had been
stopped by the Government, 46 Sir Samuel Hoare in a
broadcast speech denied the existence of any censorship.
Actually the censorship extended to the most minute
details. The Times of India announced on December 17th,
1932, the banning of fourteen different films merely depict-
ing such incidents as “Gandhi’s visit to Lancashire” and
“The arrival of Mahatma Gandhi in London.” At the
British end the India Office, having been informed of a
film entitled The Cry of the World,
“suggested that the scenes showing the Gandhi crowds
in India being rushed by the police should be cut out.
This the Fox Film Co. in London did.” 47
i
No films, however, could have done justice to the actual
events. Mr. Gordon Halstead, the American missionary
mentioned above, has since described how in the United
Provinces “women were raped, stripped naked and made
to ‘frog parade’ through the streets.” In one village Mr.
Halstead saw
“the swollen, bruised back of an old woman, who had
been mercilessly beaten by armed police with the butt
end of an army rifle for no more serious offence than that
her son was a Congress worker.” 48
To stifle news of such occurrences the Press Ordinances
were used extensively. In 1935 alone seventy-two news-
papers were prosecuted, and official figures given in the
Legislative Assembly by the Home Member showed that
law and order 339
securities had been demanded and received from 166
newspapers between 1930 and 1935- Another 34 P P
had failed to deposit securities and were obliged to cease
publication. The complete loss of independence, relia-
bility and morale among those papers which ke P l
trouble must actually have been an even more terrible
result of the ordinances." In 1935 legislation to give
permanent life to most of the emergency measures, after
being twice rejected by the Legislative Assembly, was
“certified” by the Viceroy." atrocities
Even the Quetta earthquake was productive of atrocitie .
Writing from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, a Second Lieutenant o
the East Yorks Regiment described with pride in an Eng
lish paper how his regiment had cleared the roads
“bv Betting four men of the platoon to stop every native
that comes” along the road and making ^efreffiseto
minutes. It has been most effective. If they reiuse
work a bayonet is stuck in them-
For criticising such aspects of the Government’s policy
after the earthquake, fifteen newspapers were penalised
and obliged to cease publication. 62 .. B
Even a book by Maude Royden and various publications
of the Workers' Educational Association were seized by the
Bombay Customs officers from Mr. R. M. Masam,
Secretary of the Congress Socialist Party, on his return
from England. « 3 The past year has been marked by a
distinct tendency to renew the repressive r<igi 92 i .
and numerous extemments (especially of Socialist leade )
have taken place. Among those imprisoned wiAout trial
in Bengal two are officially reported to have committed
suicide." The general temper of the Government was
aptly illustrated by the case of Mr. Subhas Bose, wo a
been released on account of his health, after long dejenuo
without trial, on condition that he went abroad. •
Bose was forbidden to come to England; and when,
his recovery, he proposed to return to his native land,
was officiaTl’y informed that he would be re-arrested on
arrival." Mr. Bose disregarded this warning and the
Government proved as good as its word.
34-0 the white sahibs in India
It must not be imagined that repression under the
National Government is any worse than it was under the
Labour Government which preceded it. There has been
no fundamental change in policy, and nothing could be
more untrue than Mr. Laski’s assertion that: “It is plain
to every observer that the whole spirit of the administration
has changed.” 69 When Sir Samuel Hoare was challenged
regarding repression he was able to reply without contra-
diction from the Labour benches that:
“Tyranny must have been twice as bad when the
Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lansbury) was a member
of the Cabinet, because under the late Government there
were twice as many men and women imprisoned.” 67
The only essential difference between the two adminis-
trations was in the extent of publicity which was given
in England to repressive measures. 68 It is in keeping with
the self-dramatisation of a popular working-class party
that it should, when in opposition, protest against the
tyrannies of capitalism} but it is not in keeping with the
policy of openly capitalist parties that they should protest
when working-class leaders act as their instruments. Hence
the effect of a Labour Government upon British imperialism
is that criticism from the Labour Press is silenced, and
apart from extreme left-wing criticism no voice is raised
to expose the brutal facts.
Repressive measures under the Labour Party’s adminis-
tration included the Bengal Ordinance for imprisonment
without trial, 60 an Indian Press Ordinance (which was the
model of all later measures of this character 00 ) and an
Unlawful Association Ordinance “for the forfeiture of
movable property used for the purpose of any association
declared to be unlawful.” 91 Ordinance No. V of 1930
made the picketing of foreign cloth and liquor shops illegal,
even where no force was used; while Ordinance No. VI
expressed the Labour Government’s common interest with
the Indian landlords by making it illegal to instigate the
refusal of rents.
Martial Law regulations promulgated at Sholapur in
1930 included a prohibition of “the Congress or so-called
LAW AND ORDER
3U
National Flag or a similar emblem.” 111 Anyone dis-
obeying this order or committing any act likely to De
interpreted or meaning that the person is performing or
intending to perform any duty or duties normally per-
formed by persons appointed by constituted authority,
himself not being appointed for the performance of that
duty ” was liable to ten years' rigorous imprisonment and Jme.
Disobedience to Curfew Orders was made punishable
by three years’ imprisonment; participation in assemblies
of more than five persons by five years’ rigorous imprison-
ment. 93 But the most disgraceful measure sanctioned was
Regulation VI, which stated that anyone who:
“ (a) sees or comes into contact with persons who are
actively engaged in the present or recent disorders
(b) comes to a knowledge of the whereabouts or of the
gatherings or the intended movements of such persons,
(c) who knows or has reasonable belief that any of his relatms
or dependents have joined or are about to join sue P er * onSy t
without delay give full information thereof to the nearest
military or civil authorities.” 94
The maximum punishment for a refusal to betray one’s
relations in this manner was five years’ rigorous imprison-
ment and fine. Numerous sentences were officially recorded
under these regulations, including a sentence of seven
years’ imprisonment and Rs. 3,000 fine for carrying 1
national flag. 96 For offences under Regulations VI, VI ,
XI (the National Flag Regulation) and XIII, four boys
of fifteen were flogged, one receiving ten strokes with a
rattan cane, two receiving fifteen strokes, and one receivn g
fifteen strokes with a birch. 89 „ t
As in 1932, films were banned. 97 To believe,
the Daily Express correspondent, “that the Governmen o
India have not suppressed the illegal activities of Gandh s
congress committees or war councils with a ruthless an ^
relentless hand is indeed to be deluded by a a
The Morning Post told how 275 people were injured m
single charge by the police on an unresisting crow
Bombay. This account records how the Congress voluntee ;>,
34-2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
headed by their leaders and forty women, “sat in the
road all night in wet, mud-splashed clothes/’ when
their procession was stopped by the police. In the morning
they were ordered to disperse, which they refused to do,
and the police (by order of the Commissioner) “made
a vigorous lathi charge.” 88
Even the Daily Herald for a time published some illumi-
nating despatches, thanks to its courageous correspondent,
Mr. George Slocombe. 89 On June 23rd, 1930, this paper
gave an account of “Black Saturday” in Bombay, when
500 people, including women, were injured by the police.
It is not remarkable that the police found it necessary to
smash the cameras of Indian journalists, or that the
Government should have issued blatantly false reports by
its official doctors regarding injuries.
Mr. Brailsford in Rebel India dealt with the less official
brutalities of Lord Irwin’s regime. He writes of the punitive
police, “an armed emergency force carrying rifles.” These
men, he said, “have no numbers . . . one cannot identify
a man who misbehaves.” Under the Labour Government
such men were let loose upon the villages, and Brailsford
examined the injuries of men and women from lathis and
the butt ends of rifles. They were “beaten indiscrimi-
nately,” writes Brailsford, “often in the official’s presence.” 70
The same writer has described the lock-up for un-
convicted persons at Borsad — “a cage with a front of iron
bars like a den at the zoo”— where eighteen political
prisoners awaited trial in a space about thirty feet square.
According to the warder with whom Mr. Brailsford spoke,
one prisoner had been there for six weeks. 7 1
“Again and again,” wrote Brailsford, “1 heard descrip-
tions by Europeans of the beating of slight and passive
youths by sturdy constables which made one feel physically
sick.” For reporting such events the Indian papers were
penalized under Irwin’s Press Ordinance, and a number
of papers were obliged to cease publication or chose to
do so rather than continue an ignominious existence by
reporting only official lies and platitudes. 72 The censor-
ship of press telegrams to destinations abroad was so serious
that an American newspaper proprietor complained ol it.
LAW AND ORDER
343
“The censorship,” he said, “has led Americans to suspect
that, when two persons are reported as kdlcd, the nun
is that twenty are killed and the hospitals full.
The American public was not far wrong in its estimate.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wedgwood Benn (who had sanctionec
every atrocity and endorsed the Press Ordinance) com-
plained of the “malicious and alarmist rumours which
were the direct and inevitable result of his policy.
In individual cases there is little doubt that the Labour
Party proved its ability to govern as well as any previous
imperialist government. An Associated Press cable of October
04th 1930, told of the arrest of a boy of ten at Lahore (the
son of the editor of the Daily Milap) for delivering a seditious
speech. Another boy, fourteen years old, was given three
months’ hard labour for picketing in Calcutta on November
2 r t h. For the same offence at Lahore on November 10 1
a boy of twelve was sent to the Delhi Reformatory Schoo
for four years, while another boy of twelve or thirteen was
sent to the reformatory for five years. He had endangere
Mr. Wedgwood Benn’s empire by standing in front o
foreign cloth shop and trying to persuade people not to
enter. In Bombay alone thirty-one children were convicted
in 1930 of such offences as picketing, selling proscribed
literature, breaking the Salt Act and being members of
an unlawful association.
The shooting at Peshawar was among the achievements
of this period. 7 1 The City Magistrate himself admitted
before the Government Commission which enquired into
this massacre that the crowd on April 23rd was perfect y
peaceful until two men were run over by an armoured
car which attempted to push its way through. Eveiy
effort was made to conceal the number of persons killed
by the soldiers, but on a careful estimate compiled by a
non-official (Congress) Committee it appears to have been
at least 125. 7 5 It was on this occasion that two platoons
of the Royal Garhwali Rifles refused to fire. Mr. Ashmead
Bartlett, in reporting the Garhwali mutiny, expressed the
greatest alarm; and the Daily Telegraph, m publishing his
report, noted that it had been delayed “presumably by
censorship.” 76
344 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
But the Labour Party was equal to the emergency, “The
Home Government/' wrote the political correspondent of
the Telegraph , “are prepared to back up to the fullest
extent any action, however firm in character, that the
Government of India may deem it necessary to take.” 7 7
These men who had refused to fire on their unarmed
fellow-countrymen were condemned to savage sentences —
one to life imprisonment, one to fifteen years, two to ten
years and thirteen others to terms ranging from two to
eiglit years. In Parliament the Independent Labour Party
appealed in vain to the Labour Government to quash or
reduce these sentences. 78
Of the Peshawar shooting a British officer said: “We
taught the blighters a lesson. . , . Our fellows stood there
shooting down the agitators and leaders who were pointed
out to them by the police. ... It was a case of continuous
shooting.” 78 Of a similar affair at Sholapur a young
English soldier told Mr. Verrier Elwin: “My Gawd, sir,
our fellows didn’t half torture them natives. They stripped
’em naked and burnt ’em all over with lighted cigarettes
till they shouted like blue ruin. And they cracked open
their heads as soon as look at you.” 00
Reference has already been made to the legalised terror-
ism of Martial Law in Sholapur. The unofficial barbarism
which flourished under its protection was even worse. On
May 8th, 1930, the police drove through the town in
lorries, shooting at random in all directions. The reason
for this was a rumour, later denied officially by the Govern-
ment, that uvo policemen had been thrown into a well
and that others had been blinded or burnt alive. 81 In the
police reprisal for these fictitious atrocities, eighteen persons ■
were killed, their names and addresses with full details
being published at considerable risk in some of the Indian
papers. In most cases the victims were in their own houses,
often in upper rooms. One instance was the killing of a
boy of fourteen who was standing at the window on the
second floor of a house. The boy’s uncle communicated
with the District Magistrate of Sholapur (Mr. H. G.
Knight) 82 who assured him of his “regret.” 83
Another boy of fourteen who was killed on this occasion
LAW AND ORDER
345
was the son of Mr. G. K. Ranade, Assistant Superintendent
of the Tain Boarding House. In this instance an official
enquiry was held at which it was concluded that the hoy
had been shot by the Head Constable, whose gun was
accidentally discharged owing to the jerking of the mot
bus in which he was sitting. No proceedings were take
against the Head Constable and no general enquiry into
the whole murderous onslaught was permitted, but Mr.
Knight once more placed his “deep sympathy on record.
By way of contrast, savage sentences were came ou
against those who were supposed to have used violence
against the police or military, even where the gravest
doubt existed as to their guilt.** „ . ,
The order against wearing “Gandhi caps m Sr I
was officially denied by Mr. Wedgwood Benn, although
Reuter had already reported on May 15th, 1930, tha .
“Lorry-loads of men of the and Ulster Rifles are parading
the streets armed with thin sticks with a hooked l end,
with which they lift off the white lmen Gandhi caps.
Shortly after this Major C. R.. Turner, in the Poona Star
of May 22nd, boasted openly of “ making Gandhi caps
illegal” and Mr. Benn was obliged to admit that his dema
waf false. •« In July Mr. Benn informed Mr. Brockway
in the House of Commons that the cap was not to his
knowledge prohibited in any other part of India, mid
Mr. Brockway promptly produced in reply an Crete
under Section 144 C.P.C.” prohibiting the Gandhi c p
in Guntur district, Madras."
Whilst Mr. Benn thus exposed his own ignorance,
lie took every possible precaution against others ^°yermg
the things of which lie had “no knowledge. 1 ublic official
enquiries, demanded after each successive outrage, were
almost regularly refused, and independent enquiries were
prohibited. 88 In one of the few exceptions to this rule,
when the police raided Dacca University, an enquny was
h c ld by the University authorities which the Government
allowed to proceed." On this occasion the indiscriminate
beating of the students had resulted 111 the death of one
unfortunate youth," and the Committee appointed by
346 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the University in its report condemned the action of the
police as an unjustifiable assault made without warning. 81
By October, 1930, India had been made safe once more
for British capitalism. The Star of October 15th reported
that the Bombay police had raided Congress organisations
“and practically wiped out the Congress” whilst in London
the same day financiers had in one hour over-subscribed
a jQ 1 2,000,000 India loan. That it was a popular move-
ment which had been crushed few pretended to deny. 82
The Punjab Governor at a Police Parade on October 23rd
described the Congress campaign as continuous and wide-
spread, and similar statements were officially made in
other parts of the country. 93 Official figures showed that
up to the end of December 54,000 people had been con-
victed in connection with Civil Disobedience, and that
during the four months from the beginning of April to
the end of July there had been 528 casualties among the
public from firing, of which 10 1 cases had been fatal. 04
The number of deaths was probably two or three times
as large as the official estimate.
In many cases whole villages or districts were punished
by collective fines or by the quartering of punitive police
on the inhabitants at their cost. 96 Punitive police were
quartered on part of Dacca in October, 1930, and on
three villages in Monghyr (Bihar and Orissa) in November,
also in the Sind Valley and in Seoni district. 96 This
method of breaking the spirit of the people proved so
successful that it was adopted by the National Govern-
ment, which applied it with equally good cfiect. For the
6,189 official whippings inflicted in 1931 the Labour
Government and its successor must share the credit.
On the North-West Frontier even stranger methods of
coercion were used. Under Section 15 ol the Martial
Law Ordinance four villagers of Mattani were sentenced to
fines of ten rupees, or one month’s imprisonment in default,
for neglecting to cut their crops ! A tribesman who attempted
to kill Captain Barnes, Assistant Commissioner at Chars-
adda (Peshawar), was summarily tried in camera, con-
demned to death and hanged, though it was admitted in
the Legislative Assembly that Captain Barnes was unhurt. 87
LAW AND ORDER
347
Numerous cases were reported from all parts of the
country in which men who had served *7 ‘erms "im-
prisonment were promptly re-arrested and (in default 0
“furnishing security”) were thrown back into jail. In
one instance on record Mr. T. Krishnaswami of Salem
(Madras) was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment on
January 22nd. 193b “offences” committed years
previously. The first two charges exhibited against him
were that he had led a batch of volunteers to the Indian
National Congress in .927. and that he organised a boy-
cott of the Simon Commission in 1928.
As in 1932, Europeans associating with Indian nationalists
were liable to share their fate. Mr. R. R. Keithahn an
American missionary living at Madura, was warned of
official displeasure because he dressed m Khadt, g_
he adhered strictly to political neutrality. Eventually
he was expelled from the country for the crime of giv 6
a night’s lodging to the present author. In this dist
Collector Hall actually sent out “requests” to m.ssionane,
that they should uphold the Government and speak again
the Congress at every opportunity; and at least one “^
missionary was reported to have resigned in consequence.
One "/the worst crimes of the Labour Government was
the Meerut prosecution. In a pamphlet pubhshed later
by the National Joint Council of the Trade Union Co g
the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Paity
it was stated that:
“The whole proceedings from beginning to end are
utterly indefeasible, and constitute something in
nature of a judicial scandal.
Yet this case continued throughout the Labour Govern-
ment’s term of office, and Dr. Drummond Shiels .exp re y
Stated that the Labour Government accepted its re P
sibility . 100 Speaking at the Labour 1 arty Conference
Brighton in .929 Dr. Shiels defended this “judicial scandal
on behalf of his government. There was no questmnof
that “ignorance,” which Labour leaders so o e
later as their excuse, for Dr. Shiels said.
34 ^ T 11 a WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
k VVe liave gone very carefully into all these questions,
and we believe that the procedure which has been
adopted is justified and is not unfair to the accused. 5 ' 101
four years later, when public opinion, thanks to the tire-
less ef lores of a small number of individuals in England,
had been directed to the real iniquity of this trial, the
Labour Party came forward as the champion of those
whom they had prosecuted. In the pamphlet quoted above
they denounced the procedure which Dr. Shiels had
defended— the removal of the accused from all parts of
the country in order that they might be tried at Meerut
without a jury. But there is no mention in this pamphlet,
or in Citrine’s foreword, of the Labour Government's
responsibility and the Party's previous endorsement of
Dr. Shiels' attitude.
Dr. Shiels blamed the accused for the extraordinary
length of the trial. The Transport House publication of
*933 blames the prosecution. Hannen Swaffer in the
Daily Herald of April 5th, i933> compared the treatment
of the Meerut prisoners to Hitler’s rule in Germany: but
in 1930 the Herald had nothing but praise for the administra-
tion which was conducting this prosecution. 10 * On
August 9th, 1933, the Labour Press Service went even
further, for the prisoners whom the Labour Government
had prosecuted for two years had now become “these
men, against whom no concrete charge has ever been
brought." They were now “victims of political persecu-
tion." This, however, was after the Court of Appeal had
modified the savage sentences; for capitalist law, like the
Labour leaders, knows when to give way to public opinion.
This trial lasted nearly four and a half years and cost
the Indian taxpayer about £120,000. It was condemned
eventually even by the Liberal press, so that the tardy
protests of the Labour leaders have little significance. 103
Mr. Harold Laski, a member of the Labour Party, later
stated that “proper facilities for the organisation of their
defence were withheld from the accused from the outset." 104
Bail was refused to all the prisoners with one exception.
Mr. Brailsford has given us a grim picture of a day in the
LAW AND ORDER
349
dreary proceedings during which the Crown Piosecutor
(who was earning about £78 per day) “sat and earned it
with silent dignity," while the judge made random notes
on a typewriter. 106 These were the only records of a trial
which cost thirty men over four years of their lives in
addition to the sentences imposed on all but three of them.
These events occurred under the administration of a
Government whose members were about to celebrate the
centenary of the Tolpuddle martyrs. Those who acted as
the instruments of British capital in an attempt to crush
the pioneers of militant trade unionism in India were in
1934 to pollute the memory of the “six men of Dorset
by hailing them as members of their own Pharisaic fra-
ternity, and the spiritual ancestors of Sir Walter Citrine.
Nothing could have brought more sharply into contrast
the professions and practices of the reformist leaders.
A similar contrast may be observed between the Labour
Party’s attitude to Hitlerism in Germany and its defence
of almost identical methods in the British Empire. “Demo-
cracy versus Dictatorship became the familiar slogan o
those who had wielded dictatorial power and crushed not
only every attempt to establish democratic institutions in
India but even the limited freedom afforded by statutory
law. 106 A ban on German goods 107 was officially urged
by Transport House only a few years after the Labour
leaders had sanctioned the wholesale imprisonment 0
Indians for picketing shops which were selling British cloth.
The indignation of the Labour press with regard to the
Incitement to Disaffection Bill in 1934 must a ) so have
caused many a bitter smile in Bengal when the infinitely
worse tyranny of Irwin 1 s ordinances was compared wit 1
this attack on British “democracy."
On one occasion Mr. Brockway drew attention to the
number of prosecutions under Section 124a of the Indian
Penal Code, for actions bringing the Government into
“hatred and contempt.” Might not, he asked, such a charge
have been made against Ministers of the House of Commons
when they were themselves in opposition? Mr. Benn, as
usual, evaded the question. That it was “rather a wider
question than the one on the paper" was his only reply.
350 THE WHITE SAIIIBS IN INDIA
At a later date, particularly in a speech at the Labour
Party Conference in 1932, Mr. Benn came to dramatise
himself as “a man standing alone with a bureaucracy
5,000 miles away . . . who strove earnestly and fearlessly
to carry out the programme of emancipation.” In office,
however, his tone was different.
“We do not shelter behind the Viceroy,” he told the
House. “He offered advice and we were free to reject
it. We did not reject it, because it agreed with our own
convictions.” 109
The result of this concord between the Labour Govern-
ment and its Conservative Viceroy was the policy which
we have examined, described by Mr. Benn as “the patient
efforts made to create a peaceful atmosphere.” 110 The
peaceful atmosphere was created in India by battering
the nationalist movement into temporary submission; and
before its fall the Labour Government took considerable
credit for the release of some of the prisoners incarcerated
under its own regime. But it was only in Parliament that
real concord was established, for there the deeds that
would have been denounced by the Labour Party at any
time up to 1924 were applauded or accepted in silence by
almost the entire House. 111
The position, of the Labour Party with regard to im-
perialism is the most important thing to understand in
considering the future of India, the colonies ami Great
Britain. A study of past and present policy will reveal that
fundamentally the Labour leadership acts upon the same
principles as the older capitalist parties, and that the only
difference to be found has its roots in two styles of demagogy
adapted to the two principal classes of the British electorate.
We may now sum up the fundamental postulates of
imperialism as practised in India by all parties which
have as yet held office in Britain. It is, in the first place,
an autocratic system, based upon the denial of elementary
democratic rights to the great majority of India’s three
hundred and fifty millions; and the Labour Party has
made itself the instrument of this system just as Hitler is
the instrument of German Fascism.
LAW AND ORDER
35 1
This applies equally to the new constitution. Apart
from the special representation of the princes, the new
legislatures will only enfranchise 14 per cent of the people
in the Provincial electorates and even less in the Federal
voting list. 112 Special powers will still be retained by
the Viceroy and Provincial Governors, including the
control of the Army and of Foreign Relations, together
with whatever portion of the budget may be required for
these and other purposes, including the payment of debts
and the upkeep of the Christian Church. 113
In addition there will be, as in the past, unlimited powers
whereby the whole constitution can be nullified. The
British autocrats may veto legislation or pass “Governors
Acts” without consent of the Councils, or issue ordinances
having all the force of law. The salaries and pensions o
these autocrats and of the “covenanted” services are all
guaranteed; and Indian ministers will have to work as
before with colleagues and even “subordinates” whom no
decision of the legislatures can remove. . ^
' “These are no paper safeguards,” Sir Samuel Hoare
proudly told the House of Commons. 114 On the one
hand the constitution, in Colonel Wedgwood s words,
will place the Indian people “in the hands of a seventeenth
century autocracy” of princes and landlords. 116 On the
other hand, British interests will be even more securely
entrenched than before.
“The British Government,” writes a financial expert,
“ has at various times solemnly declared through Labour
and Conservative Secretaries of State, that it will not
allow a condition of affairs to develop m India which
would endanger the credit and stability of the Indian
Government 1 1 *
This writer noted with satisfaction the dictatorial powers
of the Viceroy. “ If the Governor-General does not con-
sider a budget satisfactory he can impose whatever taxa-
tion he deems to be necessary without consulting lus
Parliament.” England once cut off a King’s head to
decide upon that point. . ,,
“Toreador,” in the financial columns ot the JSnv
352 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
Statesman & Nation , gloats over the same facts. He reminds
holders of India Government loans that their dividends
are guaranteed by the special powers of the Viceroy:
“In other words the Indian politician or agitator will not
be able to assail the security of the Government loans.”
Among the attractive investments recommended by “Tore-
ador” were 4 per cent Indian Railway debentures. “In
each case,” he comments, “the interest is guaranteed by
the Secretary of State for India.” 117
In the Parliamentary debates on India between 193°
and 1935 it was clear that the only divergence of opinion
between the “Die-hards” and the various Governments
was as to which was the safest way to protect British
interests. A Conservative summed up the case for “re-
form” with the warning that: “the dangers of going back
in this matter were far greater than the risks of going
forward.” 118 Hence came the overwhelming defeat of
Churchill by his Conservative colleagues. Lord Zetland
put the matter bluntly in commercial terms:
“You cannot compel Indians to buy British goods if
they are determined not to do so.” 118
In plain language, the boycott had succeeded in spite
of the most vigorous attempt to suppress it; and the re-
maining hope of administering India profitably was to
widen the circle of Indian propertied interests which
would support British rule and British trade in exchange
for concessions on our part. But the control of the armed
forces and their complete subordination to Whitehall will
ensure that the “special powers” of the Viceroy and the
Governors will be no nominal powers such as those exer-
cised by the monarchy in the British constitution. 120
Again and again Sir Samuel Hoare rightly assured the
Tory Die-hards that his proposals were as reactionary
as anything they could desire.
The first instalment of this new constitution will be
“Provincial Autonomy,” which will come into force on
April 1st, 1937 — a singularly appropriate date. In the
elections, which are to precede this great occasion, every
precaution has been taken to secure a victory for reaction-
law and order
353
ary interests. Not only is the franchise, as we have noted
severely h“>.ted but the in q votin g rights
booths will cut on poorci vuit. British
hv necessitating long country journeys on foot. 1 he Bnti
by necessitating g influence to secure support
bureaucracy is interesting contrast to
for loyalist c ^ n “ S Service in Britain> which is sup-
nosed°to be “non-political.” Finally, numerous candidates
are being disqualified by the Government on the groun
rt Vhev are ex-prisoners-that is to say, former part.ci-
that they nisnhedience Election meetings and con-
£ « E SS5* — —r >■* b ™£
u many cascs where the candidates were known to be
“ extremists, /f ' le J“ tr " ken , who have been further
threatened with prosecution for sedition in tneir
SP Such S 'are the reforms which Foreign Affairs described as
The End of Empire in India,” and compared to the
granting of self-governmen^ C Labo ur,
thC m!ie is Mclelr on this point as any capitalist party.
Tl? Labour minority which tabled its alternative plans
The Labour m y on j n dian Constitutional
when the Joint G , . rlear 128 Being
Deform renorted in 1934 made this very clear. b
Reform reporie s b ow 0 f championing
in opposition, they made the us principle
the poor and the oppres^d ; ^J oy
'Governors, controlling “reserved subject
T° h a lc^s were to be 'restricted,” but Indian inde-
pendence is not ^L^arded Tsometto ”' M
S. -srst
Labour Party do .not ^r more insincere
V, 11 This when put forward by a working-class party which
than this, when p crit icism that Labour is
has frequently a up held in Britain the democratic
“ unfit to govern, ^dhasuphea a$ (0 their
right of the people to be tneir ow j &
354 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
“fitness” in this matter. 124 But there was further in-
sincerity in the fact that even the Labour amendments
were only oppositional gestures in direct conflict with the
whole policy of the party when in office. When in 1933
the India White Paper was carried, the leader of the
opposition (Mr. Lansbury) “paid a tribute to Lord Irwin
and to Mr. Wedgwood Benn,” remarking that:
“It was true they had been obliged to suppress free
speech and to imprison people, but they had kept steadily
in mind the end of self-government at which they were
aiming.” 125
Apart from the fact that the Labour Party considered
itself “obliged” to take much more brutal measures than
Mr. Lansbury indicated, there is no shred of evidence
that their ultimate intentions were any more liberal than
those of the Conservatives. 126 Indeed, Mr. MacDonald
(who at that time enjoyed their confidence as Premier)
was never tired of reiterating that India was not a party
question, and he consistently refused any assurance, either
public or private, as to the extent of the “reforms” which
his government was prepared to support. The Labour
Party organised a Round Table Conference as free as a
Nazi election; and not until every popular movement in,
India had been crushed did they release their prisoners
to meet them on their own dictated terms. 127
And yet, in this same speech of Lansbury’s, he compares
the peace of repression to “death,” as though his own
government had not dealt as much death of this descrip-
tion as any of its predecessors or successors. They had
indeed done more; for they had defended the frontiers
of their empire by the usual methods — a fact of which
Lansbury was later reminded and for which he duly
repented. On this occasion Mr. Lansbury even, went so far
as to say of Gandhi (whom he had helped put in prison) that
his was “ the sort of resistance I believe in,” 128 though he did
not explain how he reconciled his change of heart with con-
tinued support for the mandates system of pooled imperialism.
The bombardment of the Frontier tribes under the
second Labour Government was vividly described in
LAW AND ORDER
355
The Times of June 4th, 1930, which makes it perfectly
clear that the “customary warning” so frequently referred
to on these occasions was not given in at least one instance.
“To-day’s bombardment,” wrote the Times corres-
pondent, “has been kept a strict secret, and the first
shells must have been an unpleasant surprise. . • *
The firing was extraordinarily accurate, and the gunners,
picking up the range from the beginning, dropped their
shells right into the mouth of the dark cleft which marks
the wesfern end of the caves. 12 ’ The Royal Air Force
now joined the party. Aeroplanes appeared in the
distant sky, and the sharper crack of bombs mingled
with the dull explosion of shells.”
At its Annual Conference in October, 1935, the Labour
Party spent a day and a half condemning Italian im-
perialism in Abyssinia. At that very time the British attempt
to drive a military road through the Mohmand territory
on the North-West Frontier had led to a war similar in
origin to the Abyssinian War. In each case there had been
“incidents”; and the British, like the Italians, claimed
to be “policing” a troublesome and uncivilised neighbour.
Moreover, the Mohmands, like the Abyssinians^ were
accused of harbouring “undesirable” refugees and agitators.
But there were also important differences, for the Mohmands
were few and ill-armed compared with the Abyssinians. I hey
had also the misfortune not to be represented at the League
of Nations. But their worst crime was that they were opposed
to being bombed by the British, which was clearly quite a
different matter from being murdered by the Italians.
Hence it came about that the Labour Party at their
Conference, perhaps a little embarrassed by their own
past, found themselves unable to spend five minutes on
a resolution condemning their own Government for the
crime they so loudly denounced in Mussolini. lh<-
Executive strongly opposed any such resolution thoug
warned by Mr. M. R. Masani, who was at that time 1
England (representing the Congress Socialist 1 ar y)
“It will be difficult for Socialists in India and else-
where to believe that the British Labour larty
AA
356 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
the Imperialism of its own Government as strongly as
it does that of a foreign nation like Italy.”
The fears of the Indian Socialists proved to be justified.
An aggressive war which had been condemned even by
the Indian Legislative Assembly was condoned by the
silence of British Labour. 131 But no one who had followed
the party’s record could have expected anything else. A
letter addressed to Mr. Lansbury by thirty-seven Indians
in London claimed that during the second Labour Govern-
ment approximately 4,000 human lives were destroyed by
the armed forces in India in defence of Britisli capitalism.
Indeed, the record of the Labour Party is especially
illuminating with respect to the ethics of aerial bombard-
ment. Mr. Leach, then Labour Under-Secretary for Air,
in his Official Report of July 3rd, 1924, energetically
defended the bombing of tribesmen in Irak. Lord Thomson,
the Labour Air Minister, went even further in his en-
thusiasm. 132 The years 1929-31 witnessed a repetition of
aerial bombardment by a Labour Government on an
even wider scale than before. Yet Mr. Leach was able
to write a few years later (for the benefit of his local sup-
porters) that “Bombing aeroplanes are never used for
anything except barbarous and inhuman purposes.” 134
The crushing of a rebellion in Burma was another of
the exploits of the second Labour Government. The official
report on this rebellion tells of about 1,000 persons killed,
of villagers deported for “sympathising” with the rebels,
of pardons and rewards offered for treachery to rebel
leaders. Among the causes of the revolt the report refers
blandly to the fall in prices, which had the same effect
as that already noted in India. 134 Photographic evidence
was later sent to the Secretary of State for India showing
the public exhibition of the heads of sixteen decapitated
rebel leaders. 136
It is therefore not remarkable that Viscount Cecil, the
Conservative politician chosen by the Labour Government
to represent it at Geneva, should have tabled an amendment
at the Preparatory Commission for the World Disarmament
Conference which
LAW AND ORDER
357
“would permit any signatory to the Convention to
increase its armed forces if faced with organised rebellion.
In explaining this amendment Lord Cecil stated that any
country faced with such a situation as Britain faced in
India must retain power to deal with a movement which
mio-ht threaten the nation s very existence.
In vain Mr. Brailsford wished “that the coming to powei
of a Labour Government at Westminster had m any way
eased the task of its comrades who are struggling to e er
the lot of the Indian worker.” He saw too clearly that
“Nothing in these two years has changed in . the spirit
and methods of the Indian admimstra ion. ? It rules,
it always did, in the interests of capital.
As Hyndman said of administrative acts in the early
nineteenth century, Irwin’s measures read like edict* 01
the Egyptians agafnst the Jews.” The Finance Act of 1931,
iving been rejected by the Legislative Assembly, was
“certified” by Irwin's fiat in a statement which ou -
Hitlered Hitler; and Wedgwood Benn telegraphed his
approval.* 3 ® Edward Frederick Lindley, Baron Irwm wa
thus able to defy 350.000,000 people ^d eParhamen^
which was supposed to represent them, P ass *"S y
the legislation which they had rejected, with the full supp
of British “socialists.’ . .« t im der
We have observed in the previous chapter that undci
Irvdn's rTgime tariff preferences for British goods were
forced upon the Indian public, though Benn had prevmmfy
opposed the principle of imperial preference. Con
linuallv this champion of working-class rights re-assu
(he capitalists that “His Majesty's Government have no
intention of allowing a state of things to arise
in which repudiation of debt could become a pract lc
possibility.” 11 • Indeed, the Labour Party went fuiti
than this* for in 1932 Major Attlee on triih^hmget
amounting to £13,600,000 in connection with the Gr .
War This sum, which had been provisionally charged to
India in addition to the “War Gift" already referred to,
358 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
was charged finally to India by a resolution of the House
of Commons. The resolution, moved by Sir Samuel Hoare,
stated that “the Government of India are desirous of bear-
ing finally such further extraordinary charges”; and Attlee,
who was the only Labour member to speak to the resolution,
“thought the settlement was a fair one. 112
In face of such overwhelming evidence it is ridiculous
to assume that the Labour leaders have been unwilling
partners in imperialist exploitation. No necessity compelled
them to take office in a minority government where they
could only be the instruments of a capitalist system which
they professed to abhor. But their conduct on numerous
occasions when in opposition makes it clear that even a
Labour Government with a majority could be relied upon
to continue the autocratic rule over India and the colonies
together with the economic exploitation which that auto-
cracy exists to protect. 113 Indeed, many of these leaders
boast openly of their pride in this system. 141
The plain facts with regard to the Labour Party are that
it assumed the “right” of Britain to rule India and to
determine India’s future destiny, and that it acted through-
out on those assumptions. In order to carry out its auto-
cratic programme it entered actively into co-operation
with capitalist parties and the imperialist bureaucracy in
India. Even so, it could have stopped such outrages as
the Meerut Case, just as the 1924 Government stopped the
Campbell Case in England; but on every issue it chose to
be the willing instrument of a repression which, by most
Indian accounts, was worse than that ol the lories in
jqg 2 i4 6 The Labour leaders were not ignorant of this
repression, for they endorsed the necessary measures , and
if they did not even take the trouble to read the ordinances
which they sanctioned, the case against them is all the
more serious. Indeed, there can be no excuse for those
who claim and exercise a right to govern others and admit
their own ignorance as to what is being done in their name.
In addition to this the two Labour Governments used
all their influence to prevent the truth from being known
— notably in the Patiala affair, for which Irwin and Benn
must bear primary responsibility. In this country not only
LAW AND ORDER
359
did the Labour Press consistently misrepresent the Indian
situation in order to save the face of the G ° ve ™ m ^ n * ,
but a packed conference of Indian princes, landlor s a_
other friends of the Government was convened in order
to mislead public opinion. The net effect of this po icy
was Jo emitter many Indian workers with a hatred for
the workers of Britain, whom they naturally felt to b
responsible for the situation. Those who have talke m
of democracy and of unity have shown their contempt for
both* they have vastly increased the existing cleavag
between the relatively privileged workers of the est an
the bottom dogs of economic imperialism.
It was little consolation to the Indian worker to know
that he was bludgeoned or shot by the orders of his British
mmrades ’ for his own good, and that British socialists
moved in a mysterious way their blunders to per orm.
Nor did the victims of Peshawar and Sholapur find tnuc
solace in the reiterated eulogies of Lord Irwin. He m y
have been all that he was called— a good man an a
Christian Viceroy. “So were they all, all honourable
men,” like the kings of the Gentiles, who were al “ “ e
Benefactors. The Labour leaders may have meant well,
as many capitalist rulers before them; but a well meaning
slave-owner is still a slave-owner, and in some respcc s
more loathsome than a bad one. Under their rule e
rights of Indians were the rights allowed to a dog, who is
a good dog if he obeys but a bad dog if he has a mind
of his own. Like Mr. Benn’s dog, if he has one^ Indians
were allowed as much freedom as he chose to give tl em
and most people would have given a dog more, whilst the
law would not allow them to starve it. 1
Mr. Brailsford has recorded his disgust on comparing a
codv of Young India (secretly cyclostyled, because the press
had been confiscated) with “a London penny paper
One paper dealt with the arrest of hundreds of men and
women who were struggling for the freedom o n i ^
The other was full of racing tips, murder mystcries an
Atlantic yacht race and pictures of ladies m bathi g
costumes. One was the organ of the people who were
unfit to govern themselves: the othei was the g
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
360
the Superior Race, and showed how much they knew or
cared. On a previous occasion Mr. Brailsford admitted
that the paper of which he spoke was the Daily Herald . l5 °
So fatuous was this paper’s treatment of the Indian situa-
tion that two days after the first shooting at Peshawar, when
the whole of India was awakening and men were facing
death in the struggle for independence, it “attributed the
profound discontent all over India to the long waiting for
the Simon Commission’s report.” 161
The factors that will determine any real socialist policy
with regard to imperialism may be summed up in four
points. Firstly the colonial and semi-colonial workers and
peasants form, in the aggregate, the majority among the
exploited classes. 162 Secondly, they are the most exploited
and the most oppressed. Thirdly, the struggle for the
“right” to exploit them is the principal cause of War;
and fourthly the imperialist system divides them in interest
and sympathy from the more privileged workers of the
Western countries. All these facts indicate that the struggle
against imperialism should be made, not simply an aspect
of socialist activity, but a basic point of policy in every
imperialist country. In Britain, particularly, any hesitancy
on this point will produce another display of Labour
imperialism which may discredit the British working class
irrevocably in the eyes of the Indian and colonial workers.
This is the worst danger that attaches to a possible
“Popular Front ” Government in Britain. 1 5 3 The ostensible
object of such a front would be to “defend democracy”;
yet no one imagines that it would do anything of the sort.
It would defend Parliamentarianism in Britain, and possibly
the political rights of 46,000,000 people in the United
Kingdom: but at the same time and with equal energy
it would defend in India a system which is the antithesis
of democracy. In short, in order to preserve limited rights
for themselves, the British workers would be suppoi ting
the enslavement of a population about eight times as
numerous. This is precisely the principle which the
socialist denounces in the capitalist system, which preserves
the “rights” of privileged classes at the cost of the masses. 164
Nevertheless there is little doubt that, if war does not
law and order
361
. firct the future will produce some such
overtake > Labour Reformist forces and that
blessings of Moscow. There
is therefore little immediate purpose in devising schemes
for the abandonment of the colonial empire, lu v.ew of
the fact that no party exists in Britain having both the
will and the power to put such plans into op^ratiom For
the moment the struggle against >mP« la ^'" in B ilia
itself is narrowed downtothe J
force working in conjunction wnn of
And that main contingent is made up o
revolution in the colonial countries themselves.
NOTES
1 “The Man on d« but
ST « 2"hfha|w, £ are -»-* ft
ha ^t“^e] o ; ££ ; 7" n ^eTtubShn by°the
Howard League for Penal jail in the N.W.
fnTu;^“tn“ er^»; n Ike rate ^England and Wales was 30.
Swte"plnle"t in ,he Andaman Islands, on various grounds
which included its unhealthiness.
* Hansard, Dec. 21st, 1 93 a - _ subject of a vigorous
s The death of these three prisoners was ^ India J } in a
protest by Rabindranath Tagore and o P of rep i y the
letter to the Indian Press dated J islands.
Bengal Government sent another batch of prisoner to ^ ^
« As it is clear that all vigorom crUic^m^of ^ G , peciaUy if the
liable to bring it into hatred an c F j code ^hich makes this a
criticism is deserved) the clause in P arat i on of bureaucratic
punishable offence is m e ecL ^ cni^himself in The Awakening of India,
infallibility. As Mr. MacDonald saidhi^m/n s
-
ankle-rings.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
362
a Standard Minimum Rules of the International Penal and Peniten-
tiary Commission, No. 39.
8 Quoted in the New Leader , April 24th, 1936. When standing hand-
cuffs are used, the prisoner’s wrists are handcuffed to a staple so that
he is forced to stand continuously until released.
10 See Chapter VIII.
11 The medical evidence in this trial showed that the prisoner had
suffered injuries which were likely to cause his death. Brief reports of
this trial appeared in the Times of India and much fuller reports were
published in the Indian Press.
18 The Brown Alan's Burden , by E. Holton James {Geneva 1931),
p. 140.
1S The Government of India, by J. Ramsay MacDonald.
1 1 The close similarity will be noted between the terms of this ordin-
ance and the Rowlatt Acts, summarised in Chap. IX. Of this ordinance
and those which followed the Star (Jan, 4th, 1932) said that they were
‘‘drastic orders unequalled in their nature even under the strictest
Martial Law.”
15 This was precisely the meaning attached to the word when the
Daily Express (Jan, 16th, 1932) announced that “there have been cases
of European women being actually molested.”
16 Even “the juxtaposition of news items” was made a matter of
warning in this Government Circular. More recently a postal notice of
May 28th, 1936, issued under the authority of the Director-General
of Posts and Telegraphs, has prohibited transmission by post of articles
bearing “portraits of any prominent leader of the Civil Disobedience
Movement.”
11 A lathi is the usual weapon of the Indian police — a long stick
not uncommonly weighted at the end, with which the populace can
be attacked at the discretion of local officials.
14 At Narsapur also the merchants were warned by the Deputy
Superintendent of Police in January, 1932, that action would be taken
against them if they closed their shops.
18 Letter by Lt.-Col. A. A. Irvine in the Daily Mail , Jan. 7th, *93 2 ‘
It will be clear to any intelligent reader that, if such a man as this is
an instrument of British justice, the imprisonment of Indians without
trial, as permitted by various ordinances and an old John Company
“regulation” of 1818 (still in use) is merely a way of dispensing with
an unnecessary formality. A “special tribunal” is, in fact, a legal
disguise for organised vengeance.
10 See The Indian News, Dec. 17th, 1931. The judge described it as
unfortunate and tragic, but a fact. “I have been in this country for
twenty-live years,” he said, “and I know it.”
11 May a8th, 1932. The evidence given here and below is entirely
from non-Indian sources, though the author has in his possession
enough Indian evidence to fill at least twenty volumes of this size,
regarding atrocities in all parts of the country. Eor lack of space and
in deference to racial prejudice only European witnesses are here cited.
18 Truth about India, London, 1932. How difficult it was to expose
such methods may be gathered from the fact that an Allahabad paper
(the Abhyadaya ) was recently penalised for reporting a speech made in
law and order
3 6 3
v t • Wmhlv When a protest was made in the Assembly
tt Wcly-r^toaUow any motion with regard to ^matter.
The New Statesman (Feb. 27th. 193’) mentions similar examp .
a leaflet ^published at this time by the India League, is severe even
m the history of that country* ^
** Article by Sir John Maynard in the India Review, Jan. i6th, 193 •
36 Daily Herald * April 14th* XQ3 2 * p . 11;
Sgk^i^ Frml ^
XEtad by the Manchester Guardian. With so much suppression
of all^iinu of view but their own, imperialists can hardly gamble d
sometimes they are debited with crimes they have not comm ^
Tim lupprcssion of important facts in this country has been almost a
matter of unanimity in the political and religious press.
47 Associated Press cable from Peshawar, Jan, 19th, *93 2. As 1
censorship was in force this cable must have been passe y t e es a
authorities as authentic and reliable.
88 Chief Commissioner’s Statement, Peshawar, .^'inhabkanuof
“In fact,” he continues with unconscious humou , _ are a
one of the villages chiefly implicated asked for permission to prep
S^utenant of
Ireland during the most brutal period of repression in
artick paid^^eciaUnbutc"!© the^BrUhh GivU^emce a^Th^guard^ans
of a great tradition” and expressed his hope that Andenm
"tress the need for a “renewal of Lord Irw.n's spirit. We shall shortly
"r^trrlmn^trrBa^oh (dated Y.M.C.A. Calcutta,
Ju »» For t!w 3 tapOTsfbility of obtaining justice in the courts^ as a ^e“"al
rule compare the account of Ireland in 1920-21 m Bng. Ceneral
Crozicr's book A Word to Gandhi (London, 193'). P- 37 - ...boner
was ,he edhrn of .he Mm Era (a na.ionalist weekly) who had been
**entenced to two yeats hard labour. ^ j \ ■
» Article by Peter Freeman (ex-M.P. for Brecon and Radnor) m
The wfLiL, April and, r 93 a. “Posterity,” wrote Mr Fmemam
••will class such brutalities as worse than the Black Hole of C.alcutta
or the burning of Joan ol Arc. , . , r u ii
4th ^193° ^ For a similar crime
S Maifcwe'"^ Xned Li Bombay, because, said the
(Feb 17th, .932). “she has acted in a manner prejudiced
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
to public safety in furthering an unlawful movement. Miss Slade has spent
ihe greater part of her lime, since the arrest of Gandhi, in spinning cloth.”
37 Dr. Paton was charged with assisting pickets. Actually he was
quite unconnected with any political activity. His crime consisted of
his clothes.
3B Letter dated March 8th, 1932. Published in The Friend, March
1 8 th, 1932.
33 Letter from Dr. Paton, published in The Friend , March 18th, 1932.
*0 The Times , Feb. 28th, 1932. His crime was that, unlike most
missionaries, he sympathised with the Nationalists, and said so.
11 Mr. Leonard Matters in the India Review, Nov. 26th, 1932.
** India Review, Nov. 26th, 1932. Ellen Wilkinson also tells of a man
she met in jail “who was serving six months for the sin of allowing his
brother-in-law, a prominent Congress worker, to sleep on his verandah
and feed at his table.” For similar treatment of the ashrams under the
Labour Government, compare Rebel India, p. 86. As in i93-> the mov-
ables were frequently confiscated and auctioned in 1930-
13 Condition of India. London, 1933. The delegation consisted of four
members: Miss Monica Whately, Miss Ellen Wilkinson, Mr. Leonard
Matters and Mr. Krishna Menon.
44 Miss Monica Whately, in The India Review, Nov. 26th, 1932.
45 The Times, April 30th, 1 932.
44 This was officially admitted in the Legislative Assembly. See the
Daily Telegraph , Feb. 17th 1932. In 1930 a more common method of
censorship was to accept the telegram (and the money) and merely
withold both. The author came across innumerable instances of this.
47 Daily Herald, Jan. 28th, 1933. The Hunger Marchers were also
cut out for similar reasons, and in the end the film was withdrawn
because everything of interest or importance had been deleted to
satisfy the authorities.
48 Unity (Chicago), Sept. 12th, 1932. The events here mentioned
took place during the “truce” between the Government and the Con-
gress and arose from the rent resistance campaign which had been
forced upon the peasants of the United Provinces by the fall in prices.
Further reference is made later to this campaign.
4# Tliis persecution of the press is in line with the whole history of
British administration in India. An excellent article on this subject in
the Modern Review (November, 1928), quotes a minute of the Calcutta
Council in 1822 openly stating that a free press was not compatible
with despotic government.
601 Gazette of India Extraordinary, Dec. 18th, 1935. See also the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1935. The “certification” of this Act at such
a time made it clear how little might be expected from the new
Constitution! The Burma Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1931
had a similar history.
SI Letter from 2nd Lieut. C. M. S. Marsden in the Farnham Herald,
Feb. 17th, 1934.
42 Official statement on the operation of the Press Ordinances,
circulated in the Legislative Assembly in 1935.
43 The seizure of such books constituted no innovation. Gandhi’s
translation of Ruskin’s Unto I his Last was banned in India many
LAW AND ORDER
and MacDonald's two books on India wore banned under
hiTown premiership of a Labour and Santosli Chandra
" Naba Jivan Ghosh »» Sq C ^detained in various camps
Gantruly on Oct. 17 th - Gb ° sh ,, /under the Labour Govern-
an™ ia b since his arrest on May 9*. aga nst either of these
mil). No charge had «« trial in Bengali was
men. The number of persons m y g by Sir Henry
! 2 oo, according to information . ’“detenus” were stated
C-aik to the Bengal Legislative Council, 2^5 condUionaUy and some
,0 have been released l dunns ; t!u Y.^.^ to leave their home on
nh°me-domraW JAa ^ ^ JWng) At the same tune,
internments without l r ^ w«e Consul at Vienna, dated
« Letter from J. W Taylor, Hu Majesty ^ ^ rf , he leadm of
d,r«-wi'ng of.be Indian 2ndj He
succeeded Z concilia do n a* accuracy of thefigures
rases though those usually quoted Jo compared the
6 4 The Daily Herald, for example, w 5 j t h similar floggings in
flogging of polidca P ri j 0r Jf^ t India had its "concentration camps ^
India. It also rumanked tl ^ ^ found ^ of an y enme
for political prisoners w equally true in i93°i but
Both these observations would b ^ve be JE ^ tQ thc factj n0 r did
Daily Herald at tha ‘ T': ^''ofthe^te Leader and the Daily Worker.
any other paper to the r gh. o ^ ^ within a n;ont h
* » This Ordinance had a far ^ P ^ camera _ The accused was
tw ° judgadmuld or lo be represented by counsel.
S ;as e n P o?e«n a to know the charge J-. h.m ^ .
See the Indian bpforted by the
quoted S«.?auh “Ho U jt resisteth the* power wi.hstandeth the ordm-
ince of God.” Th ; s Ordinance also per-
mi : : £xS u S 1 ^ 0 ^ sholopur ’ promul '
gated in May, 1930- In e ach case a fine could be added
Regulations X 1 U Q \
to the puimhmcnt by nnpmomn waj for disobeying this m-
41 Regulation J ^^on H that Vishwanath Balknshna, a ay
famous order and fT Q kes with a rattan cane.
of fifteen, received fifteen strok Tu lsidas Subhan Jadhav,
44 This was the senten« Seven others were
Secretary of the Lo ^ a g f j om two received five years 1m-
punished for the same offence,
prisQiiment and a fine.
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
366
46 Times of India, May igth, 1930.
*’ See, for example, the Bombay Government Gazette Extraordinary of
March 20th, 1930, banning three films showing Gandhi’s march to
the sea.
48 Morning Post , August 4th, 3930. According to this paper: “275
demonstrators who were squalling in the road were injured ” (our italics).
This was only one of innumerable similar incidents, many of which
were reported in the British Press.
68 Slocombe was, of course, hastily recalled after a few of his vivid
accounts of police brutalities had shown that he refused to assist in the
general suppression of unpleasant news. An account of the police
methods in Bombay, based on Slocombe’s despatches, will be found in
Mr. Brockway ’s Indian Crisis (pp. 163-4).
70 Rebel India , pp. 37-39. Mr. Brailsford took the District Commis-
sioner with him to one village, to see the wounds and bruises. He was
also an eye-witness of many of the police brutalities. All that he writes
is confirmed by the present author’s experience of police methods in
I93°-
7 1 Rebel India, pp. 39-40, Of another prison at Dum-Dum (near
Calcutta) Mr. Brailsford wrote: “The situation is malarious and the
prison is infested with mosquitoes.” No soap was provided, and the
place was dirty and overrun with parasites. This was typical of the
treatment of “C Class” prisoners (the great majority) though a few
(of whom Gandhi was one) received very good treatment as “A” or
“B" Class in order to create an impression of leniency. These were
all well-known people whose treatment attracted public attention
abroad. The Calcutta Gazette of Oct. 30th, 1930, published rules
regulating “detenues,” imprisoned without trial at Buxafort, showing
that a semi-military discipline was imposed upon these unconvicled
prisoners.
7 * According to Hansard (May 19th, 1930) Wedgwood Bean stated
on that date that about forty newspapers and seventeen weekly or bi-
weekly periodicals were officially estimated to have ceased publication
owing to the Ordinance. Brockway in The Indian Crisis (pp. 178-9)
gives some details regarding the securities demanded from Nationalist
journals, and their cessation.
73 Mr. R. Paine Scripps, President of the Scripps-IIoward News-
papers, at a luncheon of the English-speaking Union in London on
May 22nd, 1930 (quoted in The Indian Crisis, p. 179). Mr. Paine
Scripps told how the United Press of America received only five of
sixteen consecutive daily despatches. The Director of this agency had
then gone himself to India, and a 400-word cable he sent regarding
events at Dharasana was cut down by the Bombay Government to
132 words. When 1 Mr. Beckett (now a Fascist himself) asked Mr. Benn
whether he remembered his own very eloquent speeches regarding
the Freedom of the Press, Mr. Benn did not reply. (See Hansard ,
May 19th, 1930.)
7 ‘The first firing occurred on April 23rd, 1930, when the military
twice shot indiscriminately into an Indian crowd. There was a second
massacre on May 31st. During the present author’s last few months
in India (in 1930) firing was reported every week from some part of
the country, while lathi charges were a daily occurrence.
LAW AND ORDER
367
.. One hundred and twenty-five douhdS
kn °Tdd V ISo„ Pr T V h So e"— ITthuty killed,
others in addition, me v* mutineers’ own words,
” Dail ? May tth 93^- shoot our unarmed
“ blown'' from the guns if you like”
brothers. You may hi T , _ ’Utarv correspondent
77 Daily Telegraph, May 1st, 1930- «, j system of organisa-
meanwhile pointed with Half
tion” in the Indian Army, . winch ^ Q m the 7 per cent of the popula-
te whole arm^hy^d ^d d wh o arc not
tion who live in the iu j * , those who are drawn upon,
allowed to recruit are moie j t ^ e Garhwali case, Mr.
7 » Challenged in the House wi g ^ admitted them to be.
Benn defended the more serious charge in the circum-
S"we tad ^selves in India to-day." (Hansard, Aprtl
This 'drunken boast was reported in the IndM “JjStoS
roth, .930), a paper hostta the Congress t
by an Englishman who supported personal letter
•• This conversation «as -corded by saw
to the present author. Mr- E, « A <h , he mar k s of the cigarette
some of the victims o letter from the author to Mr. Llwin
5X thKe detai!s ’ shared the
of many others. It was lost m the post. (including The
li °." The correspondence between Mr
hoy) and Mr. Knight was publuhed in i aJ Ordinan-
shortly before that paper ceased pubh^t on awmg tc
ance. It re-appeared as a cycl ed sheet Mg V Alexander . s
'"The Englishman in the Tropics
who had been tue un summary nature of the trial. In
in their defence, partly owing to the summ . of two judges
the High Court the sentence P the accuS ed were inno-
to one, one of the judges holding , executions the Evening
cent. In the demonstra.tom agrnsd ta ^ inJL „, d by
Bomtay'.L’d that nearly ,40,000 mill workers “tluwne
tools” for the day. < 4 What is there,” asked Mr.
.»See Hansard, Ma J.. '® h .’. in ,9 u,e part you are playing just now
Kirkwood on this occasio , P . d j f h ha( j been on the
that Lord Birkenhead would not have piaycu
job?” Mr. Benn made no reply.
ae See The Indian Crisis, p. 168. wried bv the District
* 7 The Order was dated June 20th, 1930. ancl bl S ne( y
Magistrate, Mr. F. W. Stewart.
368 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
** Independent enquiries were prohibited at Cbirner (following
police firing on Sept. 26th) among many other places. At Ranpur
three successive committees were banned.
a * The University Committee met under the Presidency of Mr.
G. H. Langley (the Vice-Chancellor).
*° The Bengal Government refused to allow the prosecution of the
police for the death of this student.
• l It was about this time that Mr. Frederick P. Tostevin, Principal
of King Edward’s College, Amraoti, and an experienced I.C.S. officer,
resigned his post because “Government in its extreme ruthless repres-
sive zeal has been asking us to extend coercion even in the sacred seats
of learning.”
ta The success of the boycott is a good indication of this fact. British
grey cotton piece goods imported in October, 1930, were less than
10 per cent, of the value imported in October, 1929.
* 3 “Not a single district in the Province has escaped,” he said, “and
even remote tracts . . . have had the usually tranquil surface ruffled
by the breeze of agitation.”
These figures were given by Sir James Crerar in the Legislative
Assembly on Jan. 26th, 1931. They were regarded as under-estimates
in every particular, and do not include the innumerable injuries from
lathi charges.
For the notorious reputation of punitive police in India see Colonel
Osburn’s remarks in Must England Lose India ?
#s These and other similar measures were announced in various
Government Gazettes of different dates. Under the National Govern-
ment in 1933 an innovation was made by the application of a punitive
tax to Midnapore, payable by Hindus only. Government servants
and pensioners were in every case exempt from such punitive taxes.
* 7 Associated Press cable, dated Peshawar, Nov. 29th, 1930. The
man’s name was Habib Nur. The attempted assassination took place
on Feb. 17th, 1931, and Habib Nur was executed two days later (on
the 19th), the case being tried under a regulation of 1901. Habib
Nur asserted that Captain Barnes had killed his grandfather and that
the attempted murder was an act of vengeance. In a vote of censure
passed against the Government for this execution every elected Indian
member in the Legislative Assembly voted for the motion.
® B See The Spectator , Dec. 6th, 1930. A similar attempt was made to
intimidate Mr. Verrier Elwin for the same offence. Mr. Benn’s atten-
tion to the Madura case was demanded by Mr, Wilfred Wellock (//an-
sard, July 26th, 1930) but the Government, as usual, did not intervene.
This hatred of K hadi is symbolic of the fear inspired by the boycott of
foreign cloth and British goods generally. For the amazing success
of the boycott, and the power exerted by Congress in enforcing it (even
when Congress itself was an illegal organisation), see Rebel India
(p. 25). Two years later the Daily Express (Jan. 16th, 1932), announced
that: “The Viceroy’s firm action has . . . smashed up all but the
extremist elements, but the boycott is 95 per cent effective.” (Our italics).
This is a curious conception of a “smash-up.”
•• Meerut : Release the Prisoners. (London, May 1933) with a fore-
word by Walter Citrine.
LAW AND ORDER
3 6 9
louse ot umn „ ( Hauar d t Feb. 23rd, 1931*) .
discretion ot the tou . V accused from towns such as
to ■“ by
the British public by u d ^ S » nb That h this was a lie was promptly demon-
lent to an English jury. , , disregarded the opinion of these
strated by the judge, who Uty »' by a majority
assessors* Six of the accused were fotmd L w* 8g f Englbh .
If SSon“ y “t. guilty” by all five assessors, was g.veu
Vaster Guardian Uan. -7*.
,9 $ MemtlafforThr'Ltte 9 ^ ihe Prisoners. Umdon, March,
See RM India, PP- <*: k 6 f B - ȣ,
Mans Burden records how lka » lsf ° r deadly thing I
trial and woke to whisper: I think this s me ^ & lawyer> but
ever had to listen to.” 1 political prejudices; and it is
interesting to recall that \Siworth the name , a little Indian
of East Bengal wrote . 7 hey learn ml a smattcr i ng of one Indian
l listory, no P oh !g“ yamphyide a Fuller in Studies rf India, l Life
:ZT oIi italic.) He dlcribed this inadequate equ.pment as
insult to the intelligence of ^'““^'wedgwood Benn, "should not
lot “We in this country, said Mr. # gw m( ..i 10 d s of rubber
xt . i7 a crism bv introducing their memous oi iu
meet Nazism and 1 ascis Dy 0cto ber 19th, 1933-)
truncheons and bullets. {Da y > ^ e t i me the
... Industrial Mm* .^y 30*.' a.AT'I^denounced "sup-
National Joint Councils M y Y , . , £■ pu blic assembly;-
prewon of free speech, the free press, the murdcr
the bludgeoning of peaceable citizens, i nt i m idation, fabc
or brutal maltreatment of P? 1 * 1 ?* 1 . crimes, of
witness, illegal proscription each Stance been
saa L h»« *st5
T y .hfitSion Mr. Benn
ssrysjr « x ars. asa- - -
^Hansard, November 7*,
Viceroy Bonn said
House, have every conhaence m
370 THE WHITE SAIIIBS IN INDIA
*■
successfully “without her consent,” British imperialism must compro-
mise sufficiently to avoid a revolution. This was, of course, the real
cause of the “reforms.”
111 For example, after the firing by the police on the Calcutta carters,
during a strike, on April ist, 1930, a question was asked in the House.
It must have caused some Conservative chuckles to hear Mr. Benn,
the champion of the working class, explaining that the police “acted
with great restraint and discretion in a very difficult situation.” ( Han-
sard, May 6th, 1930.)
lla See Chapters X and XI. The Government of India Act (1935)
Schedule 6 (page 338) makes it clear that the small minority enfran-
chised will be selected on a basis of property, taxation, literacy and
army service; that is to say, an illiterate person will have no vote unless
his assumed ignorance is coupled with land, money or a “loyalty*’
record as an ex-soldier. As Brailsford said, the Constitution “ignores
the village and emancipates its owner.”
118 For these and other details, see the India Act of 1935. Not with-
out good reason and prophetic insight did Mr. Justice Beaman write
in the Empire Review (Feb. 1919): “We did not take India, nor do we
keep India, for the Indians. . . . Every Reform, every large measure,
all important administrative changes, should be referred to one standard
and one standard only — the interests of England.” This is the view of
an ex-Justice of the Bombay High Court.
114 Hansard , March 2gth, 1933.
118 Daily Herald, February 12th, 1935.
114 “Candidus” in the Investor's Chronicle , April ist, 1933* This
writer found especial satisfaction in the fact that over half the Indian
public debt had been raised internally, so that it was “to the interest
of the Indian investor, as much as the British, to preserve the credit of the
Indian Government.” The interest of the Indian peasant was, of
course, not considered. (Compare Chapter VI, Note 49.)
111 New Statesman , Sept. 26th, 1936. About 80 per cent, of the
Central Budget will be earmarked for various payments guaranteed
by the Viceroy.
118 Sir A. Baillie in the House of Commons quoted in The Times,
March 29th, 1933. In the same number Sir Stanley Reed in a long
letter pointed out that “reform” was the only way to avoid revolution.
The same day Mr. Baldwin declared in the House of Commons that
his own attitude had been dictated by the consideration that “if we
went forward we might save India for the Empire.” (Hansard, March
29th, 1933.)
118 Daily Telegraph, Feb. 13th, 1935. Mr. Neville Chamberlain at
the Conservative Party Conference in 1933 said that “he was con-
vinced that the proposals offered the best possible prospect of increasing
British trade in India.” ( Evening Standard, Oct. 6th, 1933-)
no This point was made clear in a letter by Wing Commander
A. W. H- James (Daily Telegraph , March 30th, 1933) in which he an-
swered the apprehensions of the “Die-hards.”
181 This official interference was admitted in the United Provinces
Council on June 17th, 1936, by the Finance Member (Mr, Clay) who
promised it should not continue. There is no known reason for accept-
ing this pledge, and a recent report from the Patna division, during
LAW AND ORDER 37
by Major Attlee and ^ tte« Labour ^ ^ inconceivab l e to him
made it clear on behalf of l P y f con3t ; tu tional change in India,
that, in dealing with any safeguards, should they be needed,
Farliament wouM fa.l m P^.^ der which toe kam {t.e.
Sment T-s) “were issued.” (Quoted by the City U*
the Daily Mail, Feb. . tth. W3<h lbt « thoug h it is not clear
upon what democratic principle ttepe P kidna p them wholesale,
the “ childhood ” of other nag* h r< V are fed and
SatMKS $K the - children” are left to starve.
Daily Herald, March 30 th, 1933* , between a “ broad-
. .. The* only difference appear to he
minded” Conservative and the Lab lattcr . Major Graham
the absence of “ broad-minded ness \ h that in his opinion reform
Pole in Labour (April, t934) ® a revo lution in India on a
in India was "the only way °^ aV ? g the British Commonwealth of
«*,£»£ or view once more coincides with
that of the “progressive" ' Tones. in ig30> Mr. Benn was
IS’ When the Round Table C-onfe ^ bcmers “as an act of
asked whether he w “uld release thes | 1 ^ no t b e enter-
grace.” His reply that he reared tms and had to be
tained” was made ,n a ?mJ C hutchill. (Hansard, June 23rd, 193°)-
repeated at the request of Mr. bnu V sultering s; and one of
Many of these prisooersdiedas are lamented by Hannen
them (the wife of Jawaharbl Nehrw ^wai officjaldom „
Swaffer as having been killed by bury was replying to the
1 * * Daily Herald , I eb. 6th, 1 93 * . said . j on iy wish I had never
chargeofhaving voted for arrnam^ ® pacifist principles while I
taken office, because I think I didbetray my p ^ afortiort to
was a member of the Government. mament$ a f ter voting the credits,
having made such e ^ ect ' ve us ^ . ch thg tribes men were taking refuge.
These were the caves in effect was ta bled in the name of
13® An emergency resolution ® ' Attlee’s opposition on the
^^^“^eJution was never even put before the
C °. n . f f The'nunority in the Assembly wMchsu^rtedAe^ ther Govern-
ThedCbate
took place on September 4*. 1935 Lord Thomson told how,
KS? have perihed from thirst,’ This
was under the first Labour Government.
BB
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
372
131 Bradford Pioneer, August, 5th 193a.
133 See the Report on the Rebellion in Burma up to May 3 rd, 1931, pre-
sented by the Secretary of State for India to Parliament, June, 1931.
The number killed, as usual, was believed to be much greater than the
official estimate.
13 6 See Hansard , Feb. 8th, 1932.
1 * * News-Chronicle, Nov. 7th, 1930. In an article in the Sunday
Referee (Nov. 6th, 1932) Cecil specifically referred to the necessity for
retaining bombing ’planes “ in constantly disturbed areas such as the
North-West Frontier of India and Morocco.”
137 Rebel India , p. 67. In fairness to the Independent Labour Party,
which was then affiliated to the Labour Party, it should be noted that
as early as 1924 the I.L.P. had dissociated itself from Labour’s India
policy. (See Rutherford’s Modern India , p. 261.)
133 Telegram dated May 5th, 1931. The Act (with correspondence
relating to it) was published by an order of the House of Commons in
June, 1931.
4 »« Article in the Westminster Gazette, June 16th, i 9 2 4 - Harold
Laski in the New York Nation (June 6th, 1934) went even further and
pointed out the injustice of applying preference to non-self-governing
colonies which were thus forced “to pay more for cotton goods — not
in their own interest but in that of Lancashire.”
343 Daily Mail, Feb. nth, 1931.
141 See Chapter VII.
142 The Times, July 1st, 1932.
143 E.G. the Labour endorsement of the Simon Commission and of
the additional war costs charged to India (mentioned above). Dr.
Rutherford also refers in Modern India (p. 261) to an occasion “when the
Labour Party in opposition tamely supported the Tory Bill for bleeding
India by increasing the emoluments of the British bureaucracy."
Rutherford was himself a Labour M.P.
144 E.G. Lord Snell on several occasions. More commonly Labour
speakers prefer to disguise the Empire as “the British Commonwealth
of Nations,” though no such institution exists. In the House of Lords
on February 26th, 1924, Lord Olivier stated bluntly that “the right of
British statesmen, public servants and industrialists to be in India to-day
is the fact that they have made the India of to-day.” Mussolini could
make the same claim for the Fascists in Italy — or Abyssinia.
144 For comparison the reader may note the behaviour of the French
Popular Front Government in 1936. When this Government came
into power there were numerous stay-in strikes in France, and the
strikers received as good treatment as a capitalist Government could
afford them. Meanwhile in Pondichery (a French settlement in
Southern India) the authorities fired on the unarmed workers. The
Communist Party, which rightly denounced the imperialism of the
two British Labour Governments, kept very quiet about this event for
obvious reasons, though J. R. Campbell had written in the Daily Worker
( ] une 6th, 1936) that “the Communist Party will press for a Colonial
Commission to examine the state of the French Colonies with a view to
suggesting immediate improvements in the conditions of the inhabitants.”
Certainly few Conservatives would oppose such a proposal. Meanwhile
conditions in Pondichery remain slightly worse than in British India.
law and order
373
1 4 * The complete nl^ot the" 1 iMrt significant
to every alleged commu Conservatives at least appear
^r?c C "h« » imperialism implies a little mterest
in STStSf r STsituatiot, is P« d "mu 0 /l. Iw
the average worker nc ! l J“ ^ePaHy or Trade Union “Boss” knows
the operations of imperial ism, takes means a quiet life, a com-
too m P uch. He realises, that thchw he takes oU q society . Hence
fortable salary and ultimate abso ct G f imperialism, based on the
we have a “united fi°nt on , British “prosperity” while capital-
recognition that it is fu “ da ™ c ", most ra dical articles on war. Fascism,
ism lasts. 1 he Press wi a . ea k er or writer who attacks the
of BritUh politics, and seldom is he given a
^."“Compare Edward Thom^nW^^ ave-drfve°n
- b A. <«-“ - a hun,cr “““
the virtue of dogs.’ (p. n 8 *)
i** Rebel India, p. 85.
440 New Leader , Oct. 3rd, > 930 * ^ quotat ion in a Reuter
1 44 The author was then m India and Nothing could have
cable from London, dated A P“l l 5 at i nd ? a eUher hoped or expected
been more frivolous than to sugg _ CommLssion> which was regarded
anything from the ^ ep01 , ° f t hose who knew anything about it.
with scorn and hatred by them ....... rec koning the other subject
’”Jin fh^EmpLl^ainlycoWedcotoniah) constitute two-thirds
of°the total population of the j auSalteged convert to the Popular
how popubr
as they would not ar.se under. a J ; “P^,. in pr actiee as it
may be remarked that any such y ^ peasants would rightly
£ In principle. The colonial worker and c i asse3 WO uld
resist any form of lmperialusm, sug g^tion of socialism. The
withdraw their support at *e , ra ff and probably a successful
result would be the isolation of in the third century b.c.
national revolution. It all ,tat suTa "oalition wonld prevent
444 This is not intended to mply h a coa lition comes
war. Indeed, if war has ^1- b " W ell aware that no
to power, it may be becaus _ » t a wai - against Germany* A
Gdvernment is better fitted re imperialist than the National
Popular Front Government w £ uld the vested interests of Britain
Government, because it wouM rep ^ f ^ finance. It would also
less diluted by the interests of internal fi 0 m the classes
represent the classes interested in mar ^. ^ of COU rse, a Popular
interested also in foreign ^vestments.^U^^ ^ ernfflent) brings the
Front Government (or any ° nro bablv Fascism as a result,
disillusionment of the workers and probamy
CHAPTER XVI
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE
The Indian peasant has fortunately developed a keener
political sense and has a greater incentive to clear thinking
than the average British worker. Hence there exist in
India to-day powerful social forces which will soon pre-
cipitate the crisis which British Labour seeks to avoid.
Considered in conjunction with the economic forces,
which we have already noted, these social forces may be
expected to revolutionise the situation; 1 for British Labour
will adopt a very different attitude as British exports to
India decrease and coolie competition increasingly menaces
the home industries. When at such a time India proves
every day a more costly and difficult problem there will
be a growing party in favour of cutting our losses rather
than crushing a revolution; 2 and it is precisely at that
point that the pioneer efforts of anti-imperialists in Britain
should enable them to play a leading part.
The immediate issues in India centre around the struggle
for bare existence and the demand for Trade Union rights,
release of political prisoners, free speech and right of
assembly, freedom of the press, etc. Unlike its fascist imitators,
the Indian Government has no popular backing; and a
well organised popular movement can always count on
the Government’s fears of alienating new classes, of exas-
pei ating existing discontent and of further deterioration
in the trade with Great Britain. It is therefore a sound
and practical policy to press all genuine reformist demands
in so far as they contribute to the general purposes of the
Indian revolution.
This largely explains the alignment of classes in modern
India. Just as an alliance between the reformist leaders
and the middle-classes in Britain can only be based upon
imperialism , so. on the other hand, a similar alliance in
374
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE 375
India can only be justified on the basis of a common
struggle against imperialism. “Popular Fronts,” which in
imperialist countries prove on analysis to be anti-democratic
in character, 3 are commonly justified in colonial countries
as being the means by which national independence can
be achieved, and those minimum rights established which
constitute the progressive aspect of the bourgeois revolution.
In short, the principal reason against a Popular Front in
Britain can in India be used as an argument in its favour.
To use Lenin’s phrase, a nationalist movement in India
can be “objectively revolutionary,”* just as the British
Labour leaders are “objectively reactionary,” despite their
working class origin. The Labour bosses, in alliance wit i
other imperialists and the feudal element of Indian society,
stand for a system of social organisation roughly equivalent
to Czarism. On the other hand, the Indian petty bour-
geoisie, though their demand is limited to independence
and political democracy, are revolutionary by comparison.
The Indian National Congress has been for many years
the potential instrument of a popular front in India, an
instrument imperfect and often unreliable, but (on
account of the mass support it has commanded) the only
possible instrument for those who have sought to utilise
the tide of nationalism. The most prominent socialists
in India have always taken the view that they should
work through Congress and should collaborate with the
bourgeois nationalists for the immediate and specific
purposes of the struggle against British imperialism.
The formation of a Socialist Party within the loose
frame-work of the Congress is an important step which
marks the increasing influence of socialist thought on
the nationalist movement.
Among the pioneers of this policy was M. N. Roy; and
it is interesting to note that the Communist Party, which
to-day demands Popular Fronts in the most inappropriate
circumstances, denounced and attacked Roy for years
because he anticipated their policy in one of the few
countries where such a policy was correctly applicable.
M. N. Roy was expelled from the Communist International
in [929 “for his policy of class collaboration” 8 and was
376 THE WHITE SAHIBS IK INDIA
much abused by Miss Beauchamp and other Communist
writers for opposing the Communist policy of splitting the
trade unions. It is interesting to notice that the Communist
Party is to-day rejoicing over the re-union of the Indian
Trade Union Congress and the National Trade Union
Federation, 7 for which Roy laboured in vain and was
rewarded with scurrilous abuse.
The demand for a Constituent Assembly, in which to-
day the Communists are united with Nehru and the Indian
socialists and nationalists, 8 was put forward by Roy in
1930. 9 In January, 1932, this “traitor ” to the working-
class was convicted of “conspiracy to wage war against
the King,” the only evidence against him being views
which he held or had held previously. 10 This case, as
outrageous in many ways as the Meerut trial, was com-
pletely ignored by the Communist Party, and Miss Beau-
champ, who makes frequent references to Roy, 11 does not
even mention his imprisonment. He was released in
November, 1936, very broken in health.
Whilst British concessions to their class interests have
tended increasingly to draw the propertied classes away
from the nationalist movement, socialist permeation has
had a profound effect on the National Congress. Thus
in 1931, a declaration of fundamental rights was adopted
by the Congress which included adult suffrage, freedom
of speech, the press and association, sex equality in all
legal rights and obligations, legal provision for old age,
sickness and unemployment, prohibition of child labour,
trade union rights, and state control of key industries and
mineral resources. These may be termed paper promises,
but the significant fact is that they were a necessary con-
cession to the growing socialist clement in the Congress
and its mass contacts. In a self-governing India it is at
least certain that
no political party could hope to live for more than a
day if it said that it had no programme but the main-
tenance oflaw and order.” 12
To keep the National Congress to its declared objective
of national independence, to ensure the continuation of
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE 37 /
the political struggle by every practical means, to
cratisc the Congress itself and make it the mouth-p .
of every popular demand, the instrument of every popul.
struggle- "such are the tasks of the socialists withm the
framework of the nationalist movement. It is already true
to say that this nationalist coalition is far more radical
in its outlook than most so-called socialist parties m Europe,
just as many of these nationalists appear to understand
the true meaning of internationalism better than .the
Labour leaders of Britain, who conceal behind the fa?acle
of Geneva the power politics of a glutted Empire.
India’s contribution to the League of Nations is the
third largest, though her delegations arc nominated by ic
Secretary of State on the Viceroy’s recommendation
Useless as the League proved to Abyssinia in its hour ot
extremity, no one would have expected it to be anything
else if Mussolini had himself nominated the Abyssinian
delegation. Yet such is the exact parallel in the case o
India; and the representatives of her vast populatior .only
add a puppet delegation to the diplomatic cohort
conqueror!" Mr. Horace Alexander (a Geneva enthusiast
himself) has recorded with characteristic candour the
difficulties of talking about the League in India, where as
early as .927 it was regarded as “ a concealed drug, at the
heart of it was the Imperialism of the Western Powers^
In December, 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru was for the
time elected President of the Congress. It markcd a tu n ng-
noint in Indian nationalism. In his presidential address
Nehru deprecated the nationalism of isolation and exposed
aid “for us meaus complete freedom from the British
domination and the British imperialism. Having attained
her freedom I have no doubt that India will welcome a 1
attempts at world co-operation.”” The ttae of^hrus
speech was that peace could never come from
nificance of imperialism and is rapidly learning its causal
connection with capitalist economy. r •
Forced by their position to face the challenge of
perialism, the Indian nationalists have drawn the logic
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
378
conclusions with regard to imperialist war. The Congress
is pledged to oppose any war in which Britain takes part
for the simple reason that every government in Britain
while the Empire in India lasts is in all circumstances
the enemy of the Indian people. 1 15 Here again the Congress
Socialist Party has taken the lead. “We at least,” writes
M. R. Masani, “cannot be told that by fighting for the
British Empire we shall be defending our Motherland!
The only war in which the Indian people are interested
is that for their national liberation, and therefore it is
possible for both nationalists and socialists to agree
that the correct policy for this country is to resist
India’s participation in any war and to utilise such
an opportunity for furthering the struggle for National
independence.” 1 7
To the Indian people, victims of 150 years of aggression,
there is no validity in the distinction between the “aggressor ”
Powers and those which to-day hold by force the spoils
which they seized in the past. Britain is to them a much
greater menace than Germany; and whilst Indian sym-
pathies were entirely with Abyssinia against Italy, they had
no more incentive to assist Britain in any war arising
from the “sanctions” policy than the Abyssinians would
have if invited to assist Mussolini in the “liberation” of
India. 18
In the political field there is every hope that the Congress
will avoid most of its past blunders. In the elections for
the Provincial Councils, which arc taking p]ace this Spring,
a powerful coalition of nationalist, socialist and trade
union forces is contesting every possible seat, with the
declared object of obstructing and exposing the sham
legislatures. 19 In spite of the property franchise and other
obstacles to any expression of democratic opinion, it should
be possible in some of the provinces to show that the
Government, when faced by a hostile majority, is ready
and willing as ever to fall back on its dictatorial powers.
If this is achieved it will have the valuable elfect of com-
pleting the disillusionment of those petty bourgeois elements
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE 379
which still hope for national salvation
naturally urged that this is a foolish policy. Like the Gree
they have dfered their gift horse; and it seems to them
look Tt m .lie mouth. On the other hand there is the
criticism that participation in the elect.ons, even for obstru^
tionist purposes, is a waste ° f 7™,-' but the Congress
criticism has much to be said for U but 8^
policy will not be wasted if .t » Nationalism.
demonstrate the strength and the qu y
The nationalists have refused on the one hyd to sell their
better than none”; but by their close scrutiny of the mess
they will be able to demonstrate the duplici y
The leftward drift of the Congress may be ^earl y b
served by comparing its programme , with that ot o
r Jdie vLws of ^Indian Liberals, an
When the Simon Report was pub hshed a statemen
,Wd by the Indian landlords which contained little but
the neevish complaints of a privileged class, dissatis
mcl Lucknow ... ™o..l» before
and communism which was gradually creeping into
country ” and
.., t „„ gly j. PT ,rf fc- yita a
rrrrd bv the Congress and its unmiswiuuj y ..,,*21
attitude and propaganda against property and cap •
These fears were not groundless. A hcady Nchru an
avowed socialist, combing l the % ndabad
sioganf of nationalism. The following V-r ' m the Umted
Provinces a no-rent campaign was led by g • >
December, 1931, over .00,000 peasants took the no
38 °
THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
pledge.” 22 There was, of course, the usual hesitation, for
the Congress forces were as yet too heterogeneous to stand
solidly behind such measures. But developments had fully
justified the prophesy of The Times in 1924 that
“among the ignorant masses of India a political revolution
would become a social revolution in a very short time.” 23
The “ignorant masses” proved to be as misguided as
The Times had feared. They were stupid enough to see no
reason why they should continue to pay the landlords and
money-lenders who lived on their labour, and they con-
tinued their struggle even when the Congress leaders had
attempted to bring it to an end. In the Central Provinces
the Government reported an outbreak of thefts and highway
robberies “directed against Brahmins and Marwari money-
lenders.” Here also “the idea of mass action with which
local people have been familiarised by the Civil Disobedience
Movement caught on,” and mass looting of the parasitical
classes was reported in Buldang district. 2 4
The creation in January, 1931, of thirty “life-jagirs”
in the Punjab, each yielding Rs. 100 per annum, “for
continued good conduct and steadfast loyalty to the King,”
illustrates the direction of Government policy. Propertied
interests were on the side of the one power that was willing
and able to defend them; and property, as in the days of the
Mutiny, was to be in turn the reward of loyalty. To those
who had, this meant security: to those who had not, the
temptations of a bribe. 25
In July, 193 r, Young India revealed some interesting
documents. 26 A letter labelled “confidential,” from the
Deputy Commissioner at Rac-Barcli, asked the recipient*
for information regarding “any objectionable activities of
the Congress or Kisan Sabha or Panchayats directed against
landlords or Government.” It was explained that the police
“proposed to prosecute certain agitators,” and the landlord
to whom the letter was addressed was instructed to direct
his employees “to act promptly and energetically and fear-
lessly in this matter.” 27
A second letter from the same source, also “confidential,”
the nemesis of empire 381
complained to a landlord of his arrears with payments of
the land-tax.
“I think I have already explained to you,” _ wrote ^he
collections of rents. I am prepared to g.ve you all legm
mate assistance.”
Th« letter
legal measures against tena* of the police) “has
experiment” (apparen y P landlords who
proved very successful in the estates 01
have followed my advice. 28 . "mnfidential”
Section ,44
character of these lett , District Magistrate.
s r5 O'—
in that district, and prohibited them from
“ making any speech or utterance or attending any
meeting or disseminating any . . whatsoever on
scriptioii or doing a "y t lI j? i l situat ion in the district
the present agrarian or political *“ directly or indirectly
in connection with any propag , Labour prob-
connected with the agrarian, political or Labour pr
lems .” 28
Tint the Government should thus prohibit Congress
members from carrying o p V b character
was an important admission of the new and
of this dynamic movement, u “Mothers,
the landlords had even choicer st ° * „ wrote
fathers or older brothers of Congress, «n*^ horse
Mr. Gordon Halstead, e d ing to this American
whips, lathis or leather straps. According
missionary :
“Tenants were forbidden^ attmd^ Congress S -
national flag. .' ‘ Villages were forced »
S ZSS&ZS taken JU had
382 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
been beaten to a semi-conscious state. Their thumb
prints were taken, which in India is as authentic as a
signature. In other cases, men were placed in jaii and
promised their freedom only on giving an undertaking
not to help Congress.” 30
Most of these events took place during the so-called
“truce” made between Lord Irwin’s government and the
Congress. While the peasants starved, the Government
proposed niggardly concessions in its own and the landlords’
share of the profits of agriculture. They talked of “keeping
the balance between the landlord and the tenant,” 31
as though God or Nature had ordained some such “balance ”
between the producer and the parasite.
Congress meanwhile moved steadily to the left. The
“Pant Report” on Agrarian Distress in the United Provinces
was published by the U.P. Provincial Congress Committee
in September, 1931, and proved a terrible indictment of
the Government and the landlords. 32 A correspondent
in the New Statesman pointed out in 1932 that in the Indian
villages the names of Congress leaders were associated
with
“opposition to the two institutions which the country-
man knows, the government and, in the temindari areas,
the landlord.” 33
This recent development in the Congress point of view
has been sustained in spite of the criticisms and defection
of its more reactionary elements. Even the petty-bour-
geoisie and many of the industrialists are prepared, like
the nineteenth century radicals in Britain, to assist in
breaking the power of Indian feudalism — even more
readily than the British radicals on account of the con- *
nection between these feudal despots and their foreign
masters. The Congress publication of 1936 on The
Agrarian Problem in India is a masterly document with
which no socialist could quarrel, and it exposes the whole
system of landlordism as economically and ethically inde-
fensible. 34
By October, 1936, the Congress was openly anticipating
a struggle with landed interests. In Orissa it declared
the nemesis of EMPIRE 3^3
for the abolition of the “ cobuTS
pointed out that, in t e ni « ur ban const ituencies
T UOt b , reports the bXt boxes in the rural con-
during the elections, t mes of candidates.
stituencies would only e h illiteracy is greatest,
Hence, in the country d'stncts, where^hte^ S ^
the peasant is penalised y Y udate * s box from
impossible for him ^ tm f 6 U1 A thcr ru l e in the United
that of the rivalcandidates Aa^cer ^ rura , constitu .
Provinces permits the pres g ose of identifying
encies to admit any person for the pu^ land-
the voters, such a person to >e in mo Congress
lord of the place or his that the
Foreign News-letter, wou . ^ WO uld have to
illiterate voter, even against his ses, w
'^^h^Secrcta^ ^^^HniS^'provinccs ^o^art jif^Wards
SK ^ the U.P. stating
that:
•< It is essential in the interests of theclj wh^the
Court of Wards specially j^P”** 11 !^ ushing a defeat as
interests generally, to inflict ed g socialist prin-
possiblc on the Congress with its avowed
ciplcs ■ J *
This circular went on to say that ^^^ndidate
lore decided to support in eac programme and
who would actively oppose he C g Vj the Con _
had the greatest chance ot success
gress candidate. 37 ,„;tbin the National
Indian socialists to-day remain within toe ^
Congress on two conditions. organisation, heading
leftward in order to keep P*ce with a derna d
the business of socialists to s*' At present
tion is that it shall remain a mass m Brailsford
he Congress fulfills both these conditions "0
has written of the “virtual unanimity ^ “ „
people in the Civil Disobedience campaign of 193 3 .
384 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
exposing the lie that the Moslem minority stands solidly
against the Congress. 40 At an election, he said, Congress
could “sweep the Peninsula” — though this would hardly
apply within the property franchise of the new constitu-
tion. lie tells of the illiterate masses, who knew by heart
the Congress songs and ballads, of the part played by
women, 41 and of the vast demonstrations. “More sober
and orderly meetings I never saw,” is his comment on
gatherings of as many as twenty thousand ; to which he adds
that “the dispersal by lathi charges of such a gathering
was described as ‘maintaining order’.”
Mr. Brailsford also refers to the omnipresence of Gandhi’s
photograph (though frequently made illegal). He found
it even “in the wattled hut of an aboriginal tribesman, so
poor that he owned nothing else, save his tools and his
earthen pots.” 42 Mr. Verrier Elwin, who had long sought
for a man who had never heard of Gandhi, found one
eventually who proved to have been stone deaf for twenty
years. 43 The present author’s experiences in 1930 were
similar, and Mr. Horace Alexander, returning to India
after two and a half years, was startled at the change.
“Nationalism,” he said, “is manifest everywhere.”
This does not mean that nationalism alone can achieve
the national liberation of India; nor is there any question
of the mistakes of the Communists in the Kuomingtang
being repeated by the Indian socialists. They have their
separate organisation which they are building up within
the Congress; and the more the middle class leaders hesi-
tate, the more the socialists tend to take the lead. 44 By
forcing the Congress to face each social issue as it arises,
the socialists should be able to win the leadership in the
struggle for independence and to turn the Congress itself-
into a workers’ and peasants’ party far more formidable
than any artificially created organisation, however perfect
its policy.
Lord Acton said of the French Revolution that during
six months, from January, 1789, to the fall of the Bastille
in July, France travelled as far as England in six centuries.
To-day events move even more swiftly, owing to the decline
of the capitalist system and the increasing inability of the
THE nemesis of empire 385
owning Classes to pay ^equatej E^-geld reWu-
tion in the lorm 0 concess s ; x months not only
like Russia, may w f/ CC °^ P ei ' hte enth century France,
the bourgeois revolution . f Sj democrac y, but with
bringing independent P m^rate the tenant and
it the social revolution that w^ ^ ^ and with
the debtor, destroy th ^ {hcir tools to the workers,
the restoration, oi tneir _
lay the foundations of s ° c1 ^ socialists are consciously
'• '• “rs " * f
preparing. ln . ° “m swee p back upon the still
bourgeois nationalism will jw P^.^. and ; f India
advancing stream o I ^ emcrge free from its
can survive that tid industr ialist s> money-lenders
princes and Undlo d achievement of this end two
and priests, but tor mom ent. In the first
things are necessary P r»l ni ted as a political force
place, nationalism must e P d to impregnate
and the mass contacts of the Congas used
the peasantry with a r evo to the standard of
the growing mena 1 lop an anti-imperialist
“u b ' — ,h “ *
movement m tms couu y, 6
negligible force in t h e socialists are keeping as
One essential reaso y ional Congress is to be
long as possible wit un^ ^ Gove rnment. Though it
found in the artx ud ^ nationalis t move-
mcreasingly P crscc ^ d akc the Congress Socialist
mC nt,‘ 6 it has as yet hesitated w m ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Party illegal; and it » » y the mo ment would
the realisation that su* t0 that of . 93 o
precipitate a national struggle comp ’ ^ hop( ,, for a
to I93 2 - Ihe Govommen^ ^ socialists, sufficiently
split between t e na 1 a]ithorities to clrus h the socialists
violent to enable National Congress;* 7 for such
without opposition fron nationalists if their ranks were
might well be the revenge Socialist Party .
SP Such alplht by no means impossible and it would be
justffied by any one of several possible developments. If,
3^6 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
for example, Congress lost its mass contacts, the only reason
for continued affiliation would cease to exist. There is
also the remote possibility of Indian nationalism taking a
fascist direction, though there is no sign of this at present.
It may be remarked that, if such a danger ever arose,
primary responsibility would lie with the Labour Party
imperialists, who (by making working class movements
and even the name of socialism hated in the colonies)
have done so much to foster Colonial fascism. 48
L vents, accelerated in all probability by war, will destroy
the roots of Western social democracy. Meanwhile in
India the creed of the young students and intellectuals,
the surest index of the future, points to Communism. Miss
Mayo saw it, and wrote venomously in the first paragraph
of her first chapter regarding the “ little bookstalls where
nanow-chested, near-sighted, anaemic young Bengali stu-
dents in native dress brood over piles of fly-blown Russian
pamphlets.” 40 As early as 1929 a British missionary had
noted the rapid spread of Communism” in the towns,
where it came to the workers “as a promising means of
release from an intolerable situation.” 50
Communism,” as understood by these workers and
intellectuals, does not necessarily mean the Third Inter-
national. 1 here is a deep interest in the Soviet Union
and a real pride in the achievements of its peasants and
workers, as an example of what a liberated India could
do for itself in as many years. But the flirtations of the
Cornmintern with British and French imperialism are
regarded with open hostility by (lie Indian revolutionaries.
1 lie Government’s fear of Communism was shown in
W illingdon’s despatch to Lord Zetland, dealing with the
Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1935. “The dangers of
this movement,” wrote the Viceroy, “arc not generally
appreciated in this country because of its underground
methods of working.
But my government have ample evidence of the
determination with which its activities are being pursued,
and I am satisfied that it forms a very real, though pos-
sibly not an immediate, menace to the peace of the
country.” 61
the nemesis of empire 3^7
This statement, substituting “exploitation for
is undoubtedly true. ;*T1* *at ~ ve^
haves and the have not s shou ld be able to
Nehru, the man of the future m ^ nationalism,
thieve for socialism what Uandni acnievu
“ bcc ’ ome
the objective of the masses.
India said a writer in Headway- » is a “land of con-
trasts” ’where “housed in palaces of more than Mugh
magnificence the rules °‘ P j the summC r
for themselves a new capital at Delhi, in
. j ca( j m^r m cibly Britannic
“its members . Here, oblivious of the
intolerable heat in the plains, the white sahb
over £10,000,000 and has been described as a colossal
monument of bureaucratic waste.’
, ri „ *11 n,irl officials with rooms like tennis
“There you will find officials wit are the
lawns and vast Lutyens vistas. A according
winter homes of the bureaucracy, arranged . g
to salary.” ss
e r npty an <\ cles er tecl ' ”n tildlngslftf "the SS
purpose of the architects, namely,
“to express, within the limits of the medium and the
power of its users, the ideal and fact of BnUsh rule, in
India, of which New Delhi must ever be a monument.
But Mr. Robert Byron, from whose glowing P^esdtese
words are quoted, commented that ro ^
fndia to the other I failed to elicit one good word for the
cc
388 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
new capital from any man or woman.” The Daily Mail
correspondent who described the inauguration of New
Delhi found it a “quiet, in some senses almost depressing
ceremony.” He noted that “it lacked the brilliance which
has enveloped past ceremonies of the first magnitude as
well as their enthusiasm.
“No crowd of Indians was lining the street or pressing
against barriers to witness a pageant such as they delight
in. It was more like a semi-private function.” 57
It was indeed ; for it celebrated only the temporary victory
of private interests. And the corning Coronation Durbar,
whatever tales to the contrary may be told in the British
Press, 58 is likely to prove as dismal and uninspiring an
occasion.
Those who confuse the quiescence of the people with
their contentment deceive only themselves. While men
have anything beyond their chains to lose they are slow to
act and easily discouraged by repression; yet by perceptible
stages the deepening crisis of the capitalist world is loosening
the fine bonds of hope and fear that immobilise the multi-
tude. Phe author has a vivid recollection of the contrast
between the calm in India which preceded April, 1930,
and the storm which followed. 69 There is such a calm in
India to-day and it is not the calm of death that shrouds
the ruins of the by-gone cities of Delhi.
Every movement in India has so far been stronger than
the last, wider in its appeal, more revolutionary in its
content. The masses have learnt in cacli successive struggle
more than mere disillusionment : they have gained experience,
produced new methods and new leaders. The slaves of the
Pharaohs built the Pyramids. The slaves of the Mughals
built, the Taj Mahal. These slaves whom the sahibs of
Delhi and Simla have despoiled shall yet raise a memorable
monument to their masters, for they too will be tbc builders
of a tomb. And in that sepulchre their lords shall lie like
the Pharaohs, with forgotten gods for their eternal company.
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE
3 ^
NOTES
1 Sec Chapters XI and XIV,
1 As far back as August 15th, 1930, Mr. R. W. Brock, (Editor of the
Calcutta Financial Journal, Capital), wrote in. The Times that In lntia
we can preserve our political pre-eminence or we can preserve our
trade, but wc cannot preserve both.” This will be increasingly apparent
in years to come. A similar passage from the Observer , quoted with
approval in the Labour Bulletin of August, 193 b warned the country of
the impossibility of selling cloth by “ Churchilhan methods. .
* The imperialism of the Popular Front Government in Spain is
an example. Formed to “ defend democracy,” it continued the political
and economic oppression of the Moors, and paid a terrible cost lor its
errors. The Congress Socialist (Oct. 17th, 1936) made strong comments
on this point.
t Qf may have been Marx. The Devil can cite either to lus
purpose, and the phrase as used here stands purely on its own merit,
not on anyone’s supposed verbal inspiration. But Lenin develops
the same idea conclusively in his thesis on Socialism and War. National,
as distinct from purely “class,” struggles will have a revolutionary
significance as long as there are oppressed and subject races. Nor is it
possible to analyse such conflicts in purely “class terminology, as
the record of imperialism shows. When a British soldier, who had shot
an Indian villager near Poona in November, i9 2 3> was acquitted of
murder, it was clearly his race and not his class that saved him. Similar
examples arc abundant, and Sir Henry Cotton in New India (p. 57)
stated that he knew of only two cases where Europeans had been pun-
ished by the death penalty for murdering Indians. _ Class plays an
increasingly important role; but the colour of the skm is still a vital
matter.
& It should also be noted that class collaboration in India is purely
oppositional, whereas in the Western “Popular fronts” it is also adminis-
trative. It would be the greatest mistake for Indian socialists to con-
tinue this collaboration after a successful national revolution, as this
would commit them to the support of the capitalist system, to which
their present collaboration with the Indian middle-class does not
commit them in any way.
• Joan Beauchamp in British Imperialism in India, p. 194.
1 1ndian Politics, by R. Palme Dutt and Ben Bradley, London, 1935.
• See article by Harry Follitt, R. P. Dutt and Bradley in the Congress
Socialist (Dec. 12th, 1936).
9 British Imperialism in India, p. 196.
10 How much the Government fear M. N. Roy’s policy may be noted
from the fact that a Mr. Gupta of Kurigam (Bengal) was sentenced to
two years’ rigorous imprisonment in November, I93^> * or the mere
possession of Roy’s Future of Indian Politics. On appeal this sentence
was reduced to nine months R.I., but the conviction was upheld.
11 And all of them unpleasant. See British Imperialism in India,
PP* 1 94— S and 22 1.
390
THE WHITE SAIIIDS IN INDIA
11 Mr. Shiva Rao (Indian Reformist Trade Union Leader) reported
in The Hindu, Jan. 25th, 1932. This is not only the natural result of
political democracy, hut follows from the release of energy when a
nationalist movement has fulfilled itself. Mr. Shaw, in his preface to
John Bull's Other Island, has shown that unfulfilled national aspirations
tend to cramp all other demands.
1S This has been a matter of repeated protests from the Legislative
Assembly. The new constitution will leave the matter of League repre-
sentation in the hands of Whitehall,
1 * The Indian Ferment, pp. 25-6.
’ 5 This speech -was republished in India and the World (London, 1936) .
1 * See the Faizpur resolutions, as reported in the Manchester Guardian,
Dec, 28th, 1936.
17 Congress Socialist , July 18th, 1936. Sec also the editorial of this
paper on August 1st, 1936, which completely condemns the misleading
division of the powers into “ aggressive ” and “peace-loving” states.
18 Sec M, R. Masani’s letter on this subject in the Hew Statesman
(Oct. 19th, 1935). He pointed out that the Congress organised a boy-
cott of Italian trade with the collaboration of the T.U.C. and the
Socialists, but that India had no intention of supporting British imperial-
ism against Italian fascism.
19 The new constitution will be applied at the centre in 1940. Here,
of course, the reactionary character of tire electorate and the representa-
tion of the Princes will make a pro-Government majority an absolute
certainty. On the other hand, in the Provincial elections, where the
franchise is slightly broader, Congress has secured an absolute majority
in six of the eleven Provincial Assemblies.
Statement on the Recommendations of the Indian Statutory
Commission, by the landowners of India. Prepared by the British
Indian Association, Calcutta, 1930.
71 This conference also “prayed that the land-owning class should
have adequate representation commensurate with their stake in the
country” (this referred to the Round Table Conference) and the con-
ference urged the creation of provincial Second Chambers representing
“ the aristocracy of land, wealth and learning.” Finally these loyalists
expressed their appreciation of Lord Irwin and asked for an extension
in his tenure of the Viceroyally.
1 2 British Imperialism in India, by Joan Beauchamp (p. 209). Compare
Chapter XI and Rebel India, pp. 56-7. Brailsford shows how Congress
was propelled into the struggle by the ardour which it had itself aroused
in the peasantry.
** The Times, March 13th, 1924.
2 * Government Communique reported in the Associated Press, Nagpur,
Jan. 6th, 1931. The propertied classes were not without their cham-
pion, for the communique goes on to say that “strong action was
taken and over one hundred arrests were made.”
1S Since Lord Irwin's time the Government has been much more
successful than it was in the past in its relationship with the propertied
classes of India. Tories previously made the mistake of treating Indians
with a somewhat indiscriminate contempt. Birkenhead, for example,
THE NEMESIS OF EMPIRE
39 1
Welong C (The
Indian Ferment, p. 186).
t« Young India, July 2nd, I 93 1 •
* 7 Ref D.O. 12/6, dated June 19th, I 93 1 - .. ■*
?e D C). No. 11 Deputy Commissioner’s Office, Rae- are 1, Jun ,
lQtW J 93 l * , rp, * r\ r Af*r w ^ mued 4 ‘in view of iho
situation^and S\2£ b— “*
T “ (Chicago), C Sept. nth, i«j»-
Halstead pointed out were pec by b ‘ Moslcm police (for
religious reasons. They e *« w hfch caused communal feelings
reasons Evidence substantiating these and other
to run high in some pi ac . 0 f t h e “Pant Committee,” appointed
£EuS rrovinll cSngri Co, ntnit.ee to enquire into the agrarian
Si ^erft“K 'a Melvnie, (Home Secretary to the Viceroy)
to Jawaharlal Nehru (dated Oct. 19th, I 93 U-
* a Sec Note 30, above. ■ ..
33 Article by “A correspondent in
, 932 . The same correspondent : points 1 out dj J . a fa idy shrewd
is probably quite capab c o ^ un „ ^ ints to t j ie success of
judgment on, a simple political issue. xi F
, (Allahabad, ,&>.
^ tn%=trftr« sr-ti
tinguishable by its colour. (n .
i 9 ;L) & TltSis LXES ,hg~ ent has, on occasion!
«-^ 8 -t,.edin
s.Tlte mass support commanded W^thc Ws
many places among these pag . community against
ing force of the “social J „ demonstrated in
individuals who co-opera c wt example when ashram properties
The Mian Cnsu (pp. 1 5 »-' )• P ou i d bid for them, because
have been sewed and sold, few but ottto Ward (a form er
the community government had Indian supporters
£yCr^vcr P in"d” and mus.be “a craven set ofeowards.
(Modem Review, March, i 93°0
»» Rebel India, pp. 1 2-1 4 and 148. „ • „.i
• • See Chapter XII. In 1931 th ^ ^ IIT supp^rt'of the
to have !‘ C ind°thm : 3 bctw«n' and VoJ of their members had
S Imprisonment in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
3Q2 THE WHITE SAHIBS IN INDIA
41 “If they have not yet won Swaraj for India,” writes Brailsford,
“they have completed the emancipation of their own sex." ( Rebel
India , p. 16). This is a pardonable exaggeration.
4 * Rebel India , p. 20.
48 Leaves from the Jungle, p. 132, Mr. Elwin did, however, eventually
find some aboriginals who thought that Gandhi was something to
eat. In an unpublished letter he has recorded an encounter with an
Afridi on the frontier. This man knew of Gandhi, whom he called
the Malang (Saint) but thought there was also another great leader in
India called Inquilab (Revolution!).
44 The immediate issue must clearly be the dividing point of classes
and parlies in every struggle. At the barricades no one in his senses
rejects any help available. .The only mistake associated with this
practical unity is the typical reformist error of accepting the ally's
terms as the condition of his support.
45 This anticipates the “boomerang” process discussed in Chapter
XIV, whereby British imperialism must ultimately strike at the British
working-class. There is no danger of fascism in Britain while bribes
are cheaper than bludgeons; but when this ceases to be the case the
decline of capitalism itself and the competition of coolie labour will
force down our standard of living. Then will come the last struggle of
the “Have" and “Have-not" Powers, followed by fascism and revolu-
tion. And in that hour the sahibs and their sepoys will be as great a
menace to us as were the Praetorian Guards to Rome or Franco’s
Moors to the Spanish Republic.
44 There has been, in fact, a general revival of repressive measures,
as indicated in the previous chapter. Among numerous “sedition”
charges, the sentencing of the editor of the Deshdarpan (Calcutta daily)
is typical. On June 24th, 1936, the High Court confirmed his convic-
tion (whilst reducing the sentence to three months’ rigorous imprison-
ment) for reminding the public of the Amritsar Massacre. Some other recent
examples are: the arrest and externmeni of numerous Socialist workers
in the latter months of 1936, the raid on the office of the Calcutta Labour
Party on June 2 1st, 1936, and the prosecution of sixty-two Mohammedans
at Gopalpur, Bengal (June 16th, 1936), for forming a peasant com-
mittee against landlords and money-lenders. See also Chapter XI.
4T Mr. Edward Thompson went so far as to prophesy this split
with cheerful certainty in the News Chronicle (Nov. 12th, 1936), saying
that it would take place the following month, when Congress met.
But the socialists cheated the prophets.
44 This applies especially to Palestine, where fascist propaganda would
have had little chance among the Arabs if the Labour Party had cham-
pioned their rights and assisted them in their struggle for independence.
Germany itself was treated like a colony after the War; and Hitler,
who was “born at Versailles," might have been considerably checked
had the British and French “socialists” wholeheartedly opposed the
Versailles Treaty. In Morocco, while this book is being written, the
French “Popular Front” Government has just made it illegal for any
native to become a member of a French trade union; and whilst oppres-
sion and exploitation continues unabated in the French Colonies,
General Franco has been making every imaginable promise to the
the nemesis of EMPIRE
393
. This is how colonial workers are driven
Moors of Spanish Morocco. Th « Moslem workers’ organisation
into the arms of fascism. E ^ ted the Popular Front in
“l’Etoile Nord-Africain , VP Blum Governme nt.
France, has just been suppress y wbcrc, had Miss Mayo not
4 9 See Mother India. This w ^ in . ul< j i iav e observed that there
been a little near-sighted herself, sh . pamphlets imported
are no Russian pamphlets openly o ^ ^Russian would not
from Russia arc illegal ^^^The succceds in conveying two
among the students and
Tease > ** (London, ^ See
Chronicle, Nov. *7*. >935^ oP' Ae wildest
\ “oiking-class, the peasantry and the petty
bQ S££r. Mody, ^
Mody was then attempting Qf Ta tas, and the News Chronicle
new Constitution. Hc n 1 ot< , d that “the cynical Congress man has
Special Commissione Tata Protection Society.”
dubbed his proposed party the Tata Proiec ^
65 Headway (League of Nations tl headway, who emphasises
*« The quotations are from the ym r i c kshaws used at Simla.
of living 1 (betwe^nEuropeans and Indians) see Umnfim the
J, "f Frederick Atherton in the Daily HeraU (May and, , 934) • Compare
The Indian Ferment, (p. 202). . ™,MUhed in The Listener
44 Mr. Robert Byron in a broadcast speec p privileged
(Feb. 18 th, .930- ^wellinl -d no architect has ever
to inhabit so magnificent a dwemng himself or to England,
before raised so gorgeous a monument e
India only paid the bill. ^ (Feb. nth, igsO*
« The late Sir Fercival Phillips in the Dax^ M Accord mg
** The Morning Post (Dec. 15** ‘9? of a st rong desire among all
to this paper the Government were a ^ M pre viously
classes in India that being extensively pre-
Kin4 ’ svbit to Indiaha! sm “
been “postponed” in consequence ^ India in 19 2 9 every
The author also recollects ia con fi d ently assured him that
English man and woman on the bo t J s nQ longer had any
nationalism was dead in India andthat me g
influence. They were the men on the spot. y
APPENDIX
THE PATIALA CASE
Shortly before the Round Table Conference assembled in 193®
I thought it desirable to lay the facts of this case before the
British public, in order that they might see what manner of men
had been selected by Lord Irwin, as Viceroy, to represent India.
The article which I then wrote, after some pieliminary re-
marks regarding the Princes in general, ran as follows:
The particular case to which I desire to draw attention is that
of Patiala State. The whole of India was shocked by the publica-
tion, early in the present year, of a document entitled The
Indictment of Patiala ” The authors of this indictment are men
well-known in India as men of character and ability, The
charges that they made against the Maharaja of Patiala, with
ample documentary evidence, were such as to make legal action
on his part imperative. As my object is not the vilification of the
Maharaja but a criticism of the Government, I will only briefly
summarize the main charges:
(1) Murder of Lai Singh, a subject of Patiala State.
(2) Inhuman tortures, illegal arrests, confinements and
confiscations. .
(3} Forced labour for purposes other than public utility works.
(4) Misappropriation of funds raised for ..public purposes.
The honour of a man and a ruler demanded immediate
enquiry into these allegations. ■ . .<
It is well known that such an enquiry was the object of those
who drew up the indictment. Two simple courses were open to
the Maharaja. He could either have had the authors prosecuted
for criminal libel, or he could have dealt with them under the
Princes’ Protection Act- Either of these courses would have
meant an open legal investigation* But, instead of taking either
of these courses, the Maharaja of Patiala, after some delay, wrote
to the Viceroy asking for an enquiry and suggesting the. Hon.
J. A. O. Fitzpatrick as a suitable person to conduct it. The
reason for this choice will be apparent from comments which I
shall cite later.
395
C A S E
396 APPENDIX ON THE PATIALA
The Government’s response was conveyed in a communique
of May qth, 1930, announcing the appointment of the said Mr,
Fitzpatrick to conduct an inquiry in camera . The reference ol
such an important case to a secret tribunal was in itself suffi-
ciently preposterous, but I will add some ol the further points
raised by the Working Committee of the All India States Peoples’
Conference. This body (The States Peoples’ Conference) had
been responsible for the appointment of the original committee
which had drawn up the Indictment of Patiala ; and the follow-
ing were among its reasons for refusing to co-operate in the
official enquiry.
(1) The officer appointed was a nominee of the Maharaja,
(2) The said officer had been connected with the Maharaja
in the discharge of his political duties and u»as not likely to be
impartial. (As Agent of the Governor-General, Punjab States,
Mr. Fitzpatrick was brought into close personal contact with
the Maharaja, and the establishment ol the charges would have
been greatly to his own discredit.)
(3) It would be necessary for the Committee to cite Mr.
Fitzpatrick as a witness, because it was his job as “ Agent ^ to
prevent maladministration and he had been several times
appealed to.
(4) An in camera inquiry inspired no confidence.
(5) No provision was made for protection of witnesses against
possible reprisals by the Maharaja, whose subjects most of them
would be. Intimidation of this character is among the original
accusations.
These criticisms were generally endorsed by the Press and
public in India. It was felt that a secret inquiry was quite un-
satisfactory and that the officer appointed should either enjoy
the confidence of both parties or be an independent selection.
This view was endorsed by reputable moderate papers such as
the Servant of India , the Indian Social Reformer , New India, and
The leader.
No heed was paid to these protests, and the Fitzpatrick Enquiry
was pursued in spite of the complete boycott of Patiala’s accusers,
who refused either to attend or to lead evidence. On July 15th
a letter was published in The Hindu from one of the authors ol .
the indictment, saying that he had now additional documentary
evidence including letters written by the Maharaja and his
former prime minister. This evidence he offered to produce before the
Viceroy , but in no circumstances before Mr. Fitzpatrick. lie also
claimed that a most important witness who was alleged by the
Patiala authorities to have escaped from jail had in fact been
persuaded to absent himself. Of this fact also he claimed to
have proof.
These statements too were ignored, and Mr. Fitzpatrick
APPENDIX ON the PATIALA CASE . 397
\ \ in make his report to the Government of India, who
proceeded to make ms I e idencc frils to substantiate any
‘? aUSfi fltl 7 nSmt Hi S Highness the Maharaja . . . which
charges made against n ^ ofa deliberate conspiracy
aie shown / j public bodies with the object
between of August 4*. mo.)
Mr. Fitzpatrick s X^haraialgaC the ’authors of the
has been taken by the Maharaja ag Drocee dings. The
“conspiracy, w >° ^"JJ^otli the Maharaja and tire Govern-
ment'of’ Indifare’afraid op^ 0 ^ 11 s^eg^PMpks^C^f^ence
“Tf” s-iid the President ot the states i eupn.a
’ . “(Up Paramount Power would not interfere . . •
recently, the latamo t!nf , to their birthrights of re-
oppressed people of a State reso g ; no time .” We
hellion and revolution would set ?rievances of these
claim instead “ ^[T P p™ ui , y lows how we fulfil our obliga-
S’ C it a was weU^id W anolher leader ^ S^Peopl«
moun7powe7can be regarded as a safeguard against
maladministration. . j nt the Round Table Con-
The Princes are to be represen ed ^ ^ Maharaja
ference by a large delegation which will of thcir
of Patiala, Without entering , n t u~: r States* without
right to represent the 7 ^hosT people at least to independent
LstfMs^st J open and impartial court
of law?
aK,“4; * s
saisaiS ts —• ■ »
'tty ncx 7 nmv“ to’a
has long built up its saies on sens . Xnthe office of this
^ — wh0 infomcJ mc:
(«) ‘bat no paper in Londc* yfNfflfTUlufLern-
mnt^khfZTmthing mpkasant should U said about the India*
Princes before or during the Conference,
398 APPENDIX ON THE PATIALA CASE
(c) that he believed the accusations against Patiala were true
and that the “enquiry” had even disgusted many lead-
ing officials in Delhi. (I confirmed this statement later from
an independent and authoritative source.)
(d) that in spite of this “we were in a light corner over there, and
ice must keep in with these fellows (the princes) who were the only
people we could depend upon.”
( e ) that a certain person whom Patiala was alleged to have
wronged was trying to shoot him.
Shortly after this the Maharaja arrived in London, travelling
by an unexpected route, arriving at his hotel some time before
he was expected, and behaving generally in a manner that
indicated the probable truth of the last statement. Laudatory
articles on Patiala, with photographs, adorned the pages of the
press, including the organ of “Labour.”
Having found publication impossible, I next tried Trafalgar
Square, where a meeting on India was held while the Round
Table Conference was in progress. In the presence of a crowd
which included Scotland Yard men (who were taking down
every word I said) I asked for special notice to be taken of
what I was about to say and then gave the facts regarding this
case. I also publicly entreated the plain-clothes men to convey
a report of my speech to the Maharaja and to the Secretary of
State for India.
At about the same time an anonymous author produced a
pamphlet on the case which was distributed to members of
Parliament. This created so much scandal that the newspapers
were obliged to take note of it and endeavoured to explain away
the whole affair by a garbled story of the indictment and
“enquiry,” which they represented as having “cleared” the
Maharaja’s character. They also alluded to the activities of
Patiala’s rival, the deposed Ruler of Nabha State.
Both Patiala State and Nabha are in tire Punjab, and the
quarrel between the two princes lias been no secret. The facts
regarding this quarrel (which has no bearing on the Patiala case
except in the insinuations of the press) are quite simple. Patiala
has always kept in with the British: he lias even had grouse
fetched from Scotland for British officers and officials to shoot
in his jungles. His political secretary and foreign minister for
some time was Mr. Rushbrooke Williams, who doubled these
posts with that of Director to the British Government’s Informa-
tion Bureau. During the War Patiala’s entire resources were
placed at the disposal of the British.
Nabha, on the other hand, refused to help the British in the
War — a refusal which was, I believe, unique among the princes.
After the War the British Government found maladministration
in his State and he was deposed. As the odds are a hundred
APPENDIX on THE PATIALA CASE 399
» „™ ,1,..
zsxstsZA t a „ » hm
relations with the British. French bank which the
Nabha, it is true, had securities in _ 1 and after his
British Government were unable to seque » ^ ^ carry
deposition Ins agents continue o ' . mention this fact
on propaganda against Patiala. I that both princes
had their support in Parliament and W of being associ-
were afraid to touch the Patiala scan ‘ Patiala’s solicitor
my inffmantTand “only discovered the name of one member
of Nabha’s Parliamentary Group. British public a
In .934 J oan Beauchamp revealed Buluh
number of facts relating to the Pa ; t |, t h c actual
Imperialism in India, Mbs j en _
charges against Patiala, a 5 in thc Jfe Under
deavoured to supplemen . n r Miss Beauchamp’s book
(December 14 th, 1934 )- a r f s t s h ow that the worst
I stated most of the facts given shov ^ of
crime was that of the Briti victims of Patiala’s tyranny
Charge ^de in the Indictment were revived m
the columns of the Daily W^er. Patiala was Chancellor
During the greater part of thl . S bU ec Gele br a tions he was
of the Chamber of Princes. ln\ J „ - n short) in a public
an honoured guest in this coun y. ‘ appeared to demand
position such that honour and .policy i ^ ^^ ons . He pre-
legal procedure m tbe ^ e ® c ^ urSG that served him on
ferred, however, to follow the ‘ . jqqo, when he
his way to the Round Talilc Conferen^m a 93 Bo > mbay . In
skiliully avoided the crow w _ 8 f rom any prospect of a
short, he has been as anxious , X to cove r his tracks.
legal ’action as the kindly Gover^nt to cove
That Patiala should, after so much troume ncw Con .
have proved “difficult” over tie a< ^TP . . was one of
stitution is one of the little ironies of po ‘ca- which
those princes who were not ‘^TthSn; and since
the Government of India Act w P been an easy man
the Round Table Conference Pa a N ™ firid that according
to deal with. Hence-strange to ,
to Reynolds Illustrated Weekly (August 27 th, 933) •
^ 1 Sec Times of India August 25th, i 93 °-
400 APPENDIX ON THE PATIALA CASE
“The Government of India is believed to have intervened in
the financial affairs of Patiala, an important Indian Native
State, and warned the Maharaja against diverting revenues
to his own purse.”
This tardy action was coupled with sudden publicity in the
same paper to the fact that civil servants in Patiala States were
"said to have had no pay for six months, although their ruler,
spending Go per cent of the State revenues on himself, was main-
taining a household of 500 servants and 3,000 camp followers.”
In opposing the new Constitution the Maharaja made for
himself new and powerful allies. The Times of December i8lh,
> 934 , published a letter addressed to Patiala and signed by
forty-two Members of Parliament, including Churchill and Sir
Henry Page Croft. This letter encouraged Patiala to oppose
the new Constitution because, said the writers, "if you yield,
your destruction is certain.” The Maharaja appears, neverthe-
less, to have yielded to political blackmail from the other wing
of the Ruling Class; for he has since become once more (for
reasons best known to himself) a staunch supporter of the
Government’s Indian policy. The Maharaja even bought the
entire back page of the Times India Supplement of March 23rd,
1 937> f° r self-advertisement, perorating with the hint that his
State was “ eminently fitted to play an important part in the
Federal Government which is soon to be inaugurated.”
INDEX
A 1
**A Mr.” see Kashmir, Maharaja of
Abbott, G. F., Through Indio with the
Abdul GhafTar Khan, a6 *, 263
Abdul Majeed, Sultan of Turkey, 91
Abhyankar, Frof., 246
Abyssinia, 12O, 122, > 2 3 » > 37 , 3 »
143, 355, 372. 3 77 » 37» 1
Ackroyd, C., 251
Acton, Lord, 13, 3*4 ... .
Adams, B., The Law of Civilization
and Decay, 24, 28, 98, M 5 ,
Adams’ "Report on Vernacular
Education,” 15°, > 8 7
Aden, 107
Adventure Galley , 10
Afghan Wars, 95, 99 > >>4, > 2 3 , I2 4 >
>34. >35. >39
Afghanistan, 142, 170
Afridis, 195. 280 „ _ £■
Aga Khan, The, 196, 21 1, 257, 264,
Ahmedabad, 4 , >97, 2 3 ®» 2 39* 3°8,
Akbar, 2, 6, 12, 13, >5, 88, 119, >55
Alexander, H., 384
— , Indian Ferment , 1 66, 1 70, 1 95 » > 99 »
269, 284, 287, 293, 295, 3 l8 , 3 b 7 .
077
Alexandria, bombardment of, 134
Alipore, Central Jail, 33 °
Allahabad, 81, 90, 91, 15 1 , 33 2 > 353
Alwar, Maharaja of, 228, 229, 232,
Amanullah, King of Afghanistan, 142
Ambedcar, Dt., 21 1, 212, 214* 21 *
222, 223, 257
Amery, Rt, Hon* Li 1 37s *4^
Amiens, Peace of 5 I 3 2 c
Amritsar, 1B4, 185,
2 r 5 7_ 282, 392
Andaman Islands, 181, 329, 330, 301
Anderson, Sir J., 336, 363
Andrews, C. F., 295, 334
Ansari, Dr., 214, 263
Anstey, C-, 168 -
Anstey, Vera, Economic Development of
India, 281, 297, 3°9
Arabi Pasha, 134
Arbuthnot, Sir A., 175 , >93
Arcot, Nawab of, 69
Ashantee Wars, 140 o or
Assam, 166, 1 71, t 72 . > 92 . 28 4 . 286
Atherton, F., 393
Atlee, C. R., 199 . 357
Aurungzib, g, > 3 * > 4 , 3°3
Austrian Succession, War oi, 13 1
Ava, 125, 126
B
Badauni, 6
Baghdad, railway project, 135
Baigas, 164, 17 1
Bailey, Sir A., 37 ° „
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley, 189, 199,
328, 370
Ball, H., Geological Survey , 70
j Railway Polity in India, 11b
Ba’luchistan, 266
Bancroft, F. C., 363
Bangalore, 248* 291
Bardoli, 189, 198, > 99 . 2 55
Barnes, Capt., 34 ^* 3 68
Baroda, 167, 221, 292, 293
Bartlett, Ashmead, 343
Bas table, author with Gregory of
The Commerce of Nations, 325
^Cwu^Sliion of Christian Power in
India, 266
Babar, 3 » I2 > >5
Baiils, 167
Bayley, W. B., 73
, Beaconsfield, Lord, see Disraeli
Beaman, Ex-Justice, 370
Beauchamp, Joan, British Imperialism
in India , 90, 91, 197 , 2 4 8 , 3 2 4 » 37 °,
389. 39 ?, 399
Beckett, J-> 366
Begums of Oudh, 41, 4 2 » 47 » 4 8
Bell, Maj. Evans, 244
Benares, 38, 39, 41, 81, 268, 306, 320
Benfield, P., 5 °. 6 9
Bengal, 15, > 6 , 1 9 ” 2 4 , 26 > 2 7 . 2 9 * 3 °,
. 3J-35, 38 , 49 . 7 *> 77 , 89, 116,
148^150, 167-170. > 7 2 . >83, i 9 L
195 , 2 > 5 » 2 3 6 , 2 4 °> 2 5 >, 2 8o, 283,
296, 297, 300, 304, 3 ° 6 * 3> 8 , 349 .
365 .
Bengal Ordinances, 198, 249, 34 °
Benn, Rt. Hon. Wedgwood, 326, 343,
345 , 349 , 350 , 354 , 357 * 359 , 3 6& "
369, 37 °, 37 *
4DI
INDEX
402
BenthaU, E, C., an, 222
Bentley, Dr. C. A., 322
Berlin, Congress of, 134
Besant, Mrs. A., India, Bond or Free?
7*. *53. 165-168, 292
Bharatpur, 64
Bhils, 169
Bhopal, 245
Bihar » 35, 150, 169, 234, 236, 280,
3 >9, 34 6
Bikanir, 226, 229, 234
Bingemann, I. S., 324
Birkenhead, Lord, 390
Black Hole of Calcutta, 17, 18, 27.
^ 83, 3 6 3
Blackett, Sir B., 28 r
Blunt, W. S., India under Ribon, 169,
*99, 3 ai
~,My Diaries , 181, 182, 194, 196,
244, 327
— , The English Occupation of Egypt,
120, 138
Boer War, Indian reaction to, 182
Bolts, W. , Considerations on Indian
Affairs, 29, 45
Bombay, 9, 14, 20 , 26, 57, 70, 107,
**9, 156, 169, 177, 178, 189, 194,
209, 214, 216 217, 220, 238, 239,
24 >, 242, 246, 248, 253, 258, 266,
209, 280, 283-284, 293, 295, 306,
3*9' 332, 333, 339, 34*“343. 363,
366, 367, 369, 399
Bombay Development Scheme, 107,
1 17
Bombay Presidency, 114, 117, 145
Borrow, G., Romany Rye, 7s
Bose, Sir J., ,68 75
Bose, Subhas, 202, 3™, ofo
Bolt, A., Our Fathers, % 0
Bourbons in Naples, 141
Bowen, Marjorie, Patriotic Lady, 14,
Bowman, L, The New World, 12, ,69
Bowring, Sir J., 92
Boyle, F., 140
Bradley, B. , author with R. Palme
Dutt of Indian Politics, 389
Brailsford, Rebel India, 156, ,66, 192,
22 3, 246-248, 269, 278, 282, 291,
2 92, 294, 305, 306, 318, 319, 322-
324, 332, 342, 369, 370, 383, 388,
390, 392
Bray ne’s Uplift in the Indian Village,
281, 282, 293
Brelvi, M. (Editor, Bombay Chronicle')
269
Brentford, Lord, 5^, 71
Bridge, Dr., 252
Bright, Rt. Hon. John, 81, 84, 91, 92,
in, 1 14, 1 15, 1 18, 142, 194, 289,
2 92 1
Brock, R. W. (Editor at Capital), 389
Brockway, F., The Indian Crisis, 73,
222, 269, 345, 349, 366
Brown, A. C., An Ordinary Man's
India y 290
Bryan, W. J., 143
Buchanan, Dr., 272
Burke, Edmund, 24-26, 28, 50, 69,
•65, 275, 291
Burma, 96, 99, 124-126, 139, 140,
198, 269, 280, 286, 293, 295, 356,
361
Builer, Sir H.,
3*°
Butler Committee* 244
Byron, R., 387, 393
C
Cadell, T,, author with Davis of
A Review of the Origin, etc., of the
War with Tipu Sultan , 73
Calcutta, 9, 14, 16-19, 22, 23, 32, 35,
38, 41, 47, 60, 71, 73, 1 13, 117,
*52, 154, *72, 176, 177. 216, 250,
253, 265, 291, 292, 309, 323, 336,
337, 343, 369, 392, 393
— , Bishop of, 201, 365
Cambridge Shorter History of India, 12,
16, 18, 27, 48, 69, 73, 80, 81, 89, 90,
91, 126, 139, 140, 183, 196
Cameron, Sir D., 167
Cameron, Hay, 74
Campbell, A. D., 168
Campbell, J. R,, 372
Campbell, Rear-Admiral, 194
Canning, Lord, 74, 83, 92, 225
Carbury, Major, 197
Cardcw, Sir A., 171
Garr-Saunders, A. M., Population, 320
Catherine of Braganza, 14
Cawnpore, 81, 82, 90, 91
Cecil, Viscount, 356, 357, 372
Central Provinces, 168-170, 277,
279, 284, 380
Ceylon, 298, 391
Chamberlain, Sir A., 120, 130, 137
Chamberlain, J., 75 61
Chamberlain, N., 370
Champaran, 192
Chandcrnagor, 20
Charles II, 14, 36
Charles V, (Holy Roman Emperor), 2
Chatham, W. Pitt, Earl of, 51, 69, 131
Chatter ton, K-, The Old East India
Mai, 27
Chatterton, Sir A., 173, 192, 220, 304
Chaturvedi, M. D., ,68
Chelmsford, Lord, 186
Chesncy, Sir G., India under Experi-
*»«*/, 315, 327
INDEX
403
Chesterfield, Lord, Letters to his Son ,
23. 27
Chetwode, Sir T., 317, 328
Cheyte Sing, 39
Child, Sir J., 36
Chilianwala, Battle of, 79
Chinese Wars, 92, 96, 99, 120, 136,19?
Chirol, Sir V., 192, 257
India, 195, 290
Chitnavis, Sir G., 128
Chittagong, 249-254, 265
Chudgar, P. L., Indian Princes under
British Protection, 245
Chunar, Treaty of, 41, 42
Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S., 181, 195>
352, 37*. 373. 400 „
Citrine, Sir W., 348, 349, 368
Clancey, P. J., 245
Clemenceau, G., 191
Clive, Lord, 16, 19-24, 26-28, 33, 45,
62, 98, 111
Cobden, R., Oi, 83-85, 87, 92
Cochin, 167, 292, 295
Collen, Maj-Gcn. E. H., 139
Collins, R. A., Indian Co-operative
Studies, 247
Condition of India , 364
Congress j All Indian National* 93 *
180, 181, 186, igi, 195. *97. *98.
203* 205* 206* 210* 212* 244* 201*
262, 264, 266, 268, 277, 286, 291,
3*9. 322, 326, 335. 33 6 , 34*. 347.
375-3G6, 390, 391, 393
Constantinople, 2, 134
Cordoba, Arab University, 2
Cornwallis, Lord, 39, 94. 1 * 5 . *66
Cotton, Sir A., 297, 319
Cotton, Sir H., New India, 114, *4°.
166, 290, 389 .
— , Indian and Home Memories, 292
Cowper, W., The Task, 35, 46
— , Expostulation, 44, 48
Craik, Sir H., 365
Crerar, Sir J., 329, 368
Crimean War, 133
Croft, Sir H. Page, 400
Cromer, Lord, 139
Crozier, Brig-Gen., A Word to
Gandhi, 363
Curry, J . G. , The Indian Police, 1 1 4.
169, 207, 221
Curzon, Lord, Leaves from a Viceroy s
Notebook, 244
— , 135. 22 4, »74. 304
Cyprus, 134, 142
D
Dacca, 259, 260, 345, 346
Dalhousie, Lord, 62, 75-79, 95
DD
Danvers, Sir J., 105, 117
Darling, M. L., The Punjab Peasant,
323
— , Rusticus Loquitur, 240
Datta, Dr., 222
Davis, D. , see Cadell
Deccan, 16,63, *45. 1 77
Delhi, 15, 20, 29, 45, 70, 79, 80, 85,
90, 182, 183, 197, 234, 292, 331,
388, 398 (see also New Delhi)
Demangeon, A., America and the Race
for World Dominion, 327
Desai, M., The Story of Bardoli, 199
Dharasana, 366
j Dickinson, J., Government of India
under Bureaucracy, 76, 276, 291
Dickinson, G. Lowes, Essay on Civili-
zations of India, etc., 290
Dickson, Sir F., 319
Dieby, Sir W. , Prosperous British India ,
12, 321, 322
— , Ruining of India, 322
Dingra, 1 95
Disraeli, B., 89, 92, 133, 134
Dodwell , H. H. , see Cambridge Shorter
History of India
Dost Mohammed, 123
Douglas, J. M., 291
Drake, Sir F., 3
Drake, Mr., Governor of Calcutta,
20, 21
Dubois, Abb£, 272, 289
Duchesne, A. E., Democracy and
Empire, 276
Duff, Capt. Grant, 140
Dufferin, Marquis of, 140, 205
Dum-Dum Jail, 366
Duperron, A., 73
Dupleix,J. F., 15, *6, in
Durham, Lord, 151
Durrani, Ahmed Shah, 15, 19
Durrant, Prof., The Case for India, 286,
290 .
Dutt, R. C., Economic History of
British India (All references to
1 “Dutt” are to the 5th edition of
this work), it, 12, 28, 33, 45-47, 49.
50, 56, 69-74, 78, 88, 90, log, 112,
115-119, 139. *40. *64-168, 170,
192-194, *99, 2 97, 319 t 3 2 *
Dutt, R. Palme, Modern India, 197
— , Indian Politics, 389
Dyer, Gen., 184, 185, 196,197,256
Dykes, J. W. B., 193
E
East India Company, passim
East India Company (French), 13
! Edward VII, 277
INDEX
404
Edward VIIIj 219, 22 I, 229, 231,
277, 291
Ed wa rds , Ca p t. , 39
Edwardcs, Sir Herbert, Cl, 80
Egypt, 120 , 122, 132, 134
Elgin, Lord, gi
El ten borough, Lord, 58, 72
Ellis, Havelock, Sex in Relation to
Society r 295
Elliott, Sir C., 32 r
Elphinstone, Lord, 145, 14G, 152,
165, 166, 255, 258, 2G6, 271, 273,
282, 289
— , History of India, 289, 290
Elwin, V., 290, 292, 304, 335, 344,
367, 3G8, 392
— , Truth about India y 334, 362
India : The A r ot ik - 1 Vest Frontier, 269
— , Leaves from the Jungle* 163, 164,
169, 171, 182, 19c, 213, 247, 267,
279, 384
Emerson, R, W., 153, 16B
Encyclopedia Britannica y 12, 165
Engels, I\, 312, 325
Ewer, W- N., 247
F
Fa Hian, 8, 165
Faizpur Resolutions, 390
Farnavis, Nana, 73
Fawcett, Sir C., 241
Fawcett Committee, 122, 291
Fa%vcett, FL 5 106, 124, 291
Fitzpatrick, Hon* J. A, O., 395^397
Forster, E. M., A Passage to India t 290
Fort William, r6
Francis, P., 38, 39, 47, 320
Franco, Gen., 392
Freeman, P., 336, 363
Frcre, Sir B., 168
Fuller, Sir B., Studies of Indian Life
and Sentiment , 291, 369
G
Gage’s New Survey of the West Indies, 26
Gandhi, M. K., 167, 169, 181, 186,
187, 191, 192, 197--204, 206, 208-
219, 223, 226, 246, 261, 2G3, 264,
286, 287, 294, 323. 332, 333. 34G
364, 366, 384, 387, 392
", Experiments with Truth, 202, 219
Ganguly, S. C., 3G5
Garhwali Rifles, 255, 256, 266, 343,
387
Garralt, G. T., author with Thomp-
son of Rise and Fulfilment of British
Rule, see Thompson
— , An Indian Commentary, 244
Genghis Khan, 15
George V, 127, 231
George, H-, 194, 302
George, Prof. T. J., The Briton in
India , 289 , 337
Ghosh, N. J., 365
i Girni Karngar Union, 241, 248
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 92, 124,
126, 133, 134, 142
■ Glennings, J, F., 247
Goa, Portuguese Governor of, 88
Gokhale, G. K., 179, 180, 194, 195
Gopalpur, 392
Goods, 153, 163, 164, 170, 182, 247,
279, 304
Gooch, G. P., History of Our Times,
1 42
Goodcnough, F. C., 327
Gordon, Gen., 140
Grant, Sir J. P., 103
Gray, Rev. R. M., 202
Great War, 127, 128, 134, 138, 181
Green’s Short History of the English
People, 133,
Gregory, see Bast able
Gujerat, 8, g, 209
Gupta, Sen, 253, 264
Gurkhas, 78, 251, 256, 266
H
Habib Nur, 368
Hailey, Sir M., 293
Haliday, Mr., Governor of Bengal, 86
Halifax, Viscount, see Irwin
Hall, F., The Passing of Empire, 2gt
Halstead, G., 337, 338, 381, 391
Hamilton, Sir D., 302, 321
Hamilton, Lord G., 176, 295
Hamilton, W., East India Gazetteer, r r
Flamilton, Lt.-Col. W. G., 171, 195,
329 . 330
Hardayal, Dr. L., 194
Hardie, K., India, 149, 290
Hardinge, Lord, 95,
Hardinge of Penshurst, Barons, 127,
J 4 i
Hastings, Warren, 35, 37-42, 44-48,
5 g > Gi, 67, 68, 72, 89, 94, in, 220 t
271, 2O9
Hastings, Marquis of, 95, 1 14
Havelock, Sir Henry, 81, 90
Hawkins, Sir J., 12
Hebcr, Bishop, 64, 73, 112-114, M 9 >
271, 289
Hicks, Joynson, see Brentford
Hill, Sir C., 278
Hiller, A., 348, 350, 369
Hoare, Sir S., 167, 288, 295, 319, 329,
337, 338, 34®, 35 1» 352, 358, 3G1
INDEX
Hobson, J. A., Work and Wealth, 325
Holmes’ History of the Mutiny, 91
Holwell, Mr., 16
Hopkins, W. S., 253
Horrabin, J. F., Short History of the
British Empire, 90
Houghton, 11 ., 166
Housman, L., 363
Hoy land, J. S., The Case for India,
197 , 265, 393
Hugh, 16, 19, 22, 104, 310
Hume, A. O. . 1 95
Humphreys, Sir F. t 139
Hunter, Lord., 1O8
Hunter Commission, 196, 197
Hunter, Sir W., Brief History of the
Indian People, 79 . *66, 289
— , Annals of Rural Bengal, 46
— , India of the Qiteen, 292 , 303
— , Indian Empire, 322, 323
Hutchinson, L., 369
Huxley, A., 244
Hyderabad, Nizam of, 04, 22b, 245
Hyndman, 1 L, Bankruptcy of India, 76,
88, 89, 11 1, 1 12, 1 17, 1 18, 303, 309,
321, 322, 337
I
Ibbotson, Sir D., 294
Impcy, Sir 41, 42, 47, 48
Indore, 293
Inskip, Sir T,, 11
Irak, 137
Irvine, Lt.-Col. A. A., 3G2
Irwin, Lord, 190, 198, 226-228, 245.
257, 326, 342, 349 , 35 °, 354 , 357 “
359 , 3 G 7 , 3G9, 382, 39 °, 395
— , Indian Problems, 112, 192, 210, 229
Iyer, C. S. R., India, Peace and War,
244
Jalianwala Bagh, 184, 196, 197, 282
James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.,
37 °
James, E. H., 246
— , The Brown Man's Burden, 362, 369
Jamia t-ul-U 1 cma , 264
Jamnagar, Maharaja of, 229
Java, 94
Jeffreys, Judge, 36 , .
Jenks, L. H., Migration of British
Capital, 120, 12 1
Jhansi State, 77
— , Rani of, 77, 82
ones. Sir W. , 289
Joshi, H. L. , 223, 239
Joynson-Hicks, see Brentford
‘Junius’* lettert, 47
li
( <
K
Kabir, 5, 167
Kabul, 123, 124, 135, 139
Kali Ghat, 216, 294
Karachi, 265, 2G6, 386
Kamatic, Nawab of the, 49, 62
Kashmir, 227, 232, 244
Kashmir, Maharaja of, 227
Kasimbazar, 16
Kautsky, K., 325
Kaye, Sir J., author with Maltcson
of History of the Mutiny, 82, 91
Keats’ Isabella, 324
Keithahn, R. R., 347
Kellogg Pact, 129, 130, 137, > 4 !
Kendal, Patricia, Come with me to
India, 293
Kennedy, Col. V., 2C9
Kermack, W. R., The Expansion of
Britain, 101, 116
Khaddar, 204, 336-7, 347
Khambata, K. J., author with K. T.
Shah of The Wealth and Taxable
Capacity of India, 326
Khedive of Egypt, 134
Kheri forests, 318
Khilafat, 72, 73, 91, 183, 196
Kidd, Capt., to
Kipling, R., 75 , 2 78
Kirkwood, D., 367
Kitchener, Lord, 1 95
Knight, H. G., 344, 345 , 3 G 7
Knowles, Rev, J., 322
Kohat, 335
Koran, The, 321
L
Labourdonnais, Comte de, 16
Labour Governments, 140, 189, 190,
198, 255, 340, 344, 347 , 348 , 35 6 ,
37 G 397
Lahore, 79, 185, 191, 221, 263, 334,
33 6 » 343
Laing, Mr., 103
Lai Singh, 78, 90
Langley, G, H., 368
Lansbury, G., 71, 340, 354, 35 G , 37 1
Lansdowne, Lord, 327
Laski, 11 ., 33G, 340, 348, 363, 3G5,
372
Latham’s Famous Sayings and their
Origin , 27
Lawrence, Sir Henry, 68, 90
Lawrence, John {Lord Lawrence),
92,104-6,117,122, 138-9, 152,322
Lawrence, T. E., 143
Leach, W., 356
League of Nations, 143 » 2 4 °» 2 4 J ,
331*, 355 , 377
INDEX
406
Lccky’s History of England , 51, 69
Lenin, V. I., 325, 389
Lepanto, Battle of, 2
Lewis, Wyndham, The Enemy, 294
Leys, Dr. N., Kenya, 141
Lilley, W. S., India and its Problems ,
118,119
Limbdi, 245
Llassa, 135
Lloyd, Lord, 117, 169, 207, 229
Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. D., 195
Locker- La mpson, O., 137, 142
London, 24, 43, 50, 7G, 120
— , Treaty of, 133
Lord, \V. F., 194
Lothian Commission, 205, 214, 219,
222
Loveday, History and Economics of
Indian Famines, 1 1 8
Lucas, W. E., Great Britain and the
East, 293
Lucknow, 39, 41, 76, 82, 91, 242, 379
Ludlow, History of British India, 150
Lugard, Lord, Extension of British
Trade in Africa , 290
Lyall) Sir A., Asiatic Studies, 225, 244
Lytton, Lord (former Viceroy), 74,
1 23, J24, 142, 182, 193, 225
— (present Earl), 325
M
Macaulay, Lord, to, 14, 23, 35, 3^
44, 48, 51, 69, 72, 77, 98, 179,
275. 292
— , History of England , 12
— , Essay on Clive, 26-28, 45, 49, 69,
73. 1 *5? J'9> 291
— , Essay on 1 Barren Hastings, 28, 45-
48, 89
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R., The
Government of India, 331 , 365
— , The Awakening of India, 292, 322,
362 , 3^5) 3 66
Mackenzie, H., 60, 301
Maclean, J. hi., 110
MacMunn, Sir G., 223
Macpherson, Sir J., 39
Macquistcn, F. A., 291
Madras, 14, 16, 32, 46, 62, III, 1 13,
119, 146, 147, 169, 173, 174, 176-
179, 221, 239, 260, 283, 304, 30C,
3*9. 3 2 5, 333. 336
Mahmud, Dr. S., 263
Maine, Sir H., Village Communities in
East and West , 166, 167
Majendie, Lt., gi
Malcolm, SirJ., 56, 63, 67, 70, 73, 98,
271, 289
— , Life of Clive, 1 1 5
Mallcson, Col., 82, 91, {see Kaye)
Mallet, B., Thomas George , Earl of
Northbrook, 1 39
Malta, 132, 141, 142
Manchester, 52, 58, 67
Mann, Dr. H-, Land and Labour in a
Deccan Village , 17 J, 194
Manshardt, Dr. C., The Hindu-
Muslim Problem, 156* i6g
Marnij 1G6
Marsden, Lt. CL M. S, 5 364
Martin, M., 6o> go, i n, I iQ
— , Eastern India , 72, no
Mar war is, 259. 38°
Marx, Karl, 325, 389
— , Capital, 28, 71, 295
Masani, M. R., 339, 355. 378, 390
Massey, Hon. W., 104
Matters, L. , 364
Matthai, J., Village Government in
British India, 165
Maynard, Sir J., 334, 363
Mayo, Lord, 117
Mayo, Kathleen, The Isles of Fear, 293
— , Mother India, 221, 268, 282, 283,
285, 289, 386, 393
McCarrison, Lt.-Col. R., 169
McCarthy, J., Short History of our
Times, 123, 124, 139
Meerut, 77, 79
Meerut Trial, 190, 234, 241, 242, 248,
347-9, 358, 388, 369
Megasthenes, 149, 166, 289
Mehemed Ali, 133
Melville, E. C., 391
Mcnon, Krishna, 364
Mercer, G., 71
Mestnn, Lord, 290
Metcalfe, Sir C., 7, 145
Mexico, 143
Meyer, Sir W., 128
Michclbournc, Sir E., 4
Milman, II. H., 89
Mill, James, History of British India
(All references to “ Mill” arc to the
5th edition of this work), 3, 4, 7,
11, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 27, 30, 38,
39, 45, 47, 48, 7*> 77, 118. 185,
218, 219, 270, 2 73, 277, 289, 290,
321 {set also Wilson, H. H.)
Mill, John Stuart, to8
Ming Dynasty, 3
Minto, Lord, 1O1
Mir Jafar, 21
Mir Kasim, 30, 59
Mody, Sir II. P., 393
Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, 1 87-
189, 279, 293
Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S., Indian
Diary, 22b, 290
INDEX
407
Montgomery, Sir R., 90
Mookerji’s History of Indian Shipping,
70
Moonje, Dr., 257
Moore, Lt.-Col., Narrative of War with
Tippu Sultan, 61, 72
Moplahs, 27, g 1, 260
Morley-Minto Reforms, 256
Morley, Lord, 143, 181, 195 1
— , Life of Cob den, gt
Mornington, Lord, see Wellesley
Morocco, 302
Mosley, Lady Cynthia, 299
Mughals, 2, 3, 5, 9 j I2 » * 5, 26, 29,
43-45, 47, 82, 74, 79, 80, 93, 106,
in, 130, 165, 178, 254, 267, 303,
389
Mukhtar, Dr. A., Trade Unionism and
Labour Disputes in India, 192, 238,
247, 248
Muller, M.j India, What Can It
Teach Us? 15°, *5*, *84, *86, 167,
272, 289, 290
Munro, Sir I., n, 58, 5®, 85, 87, 7 1 ,
88, 144, 145, 147, H 0 , *9 8 , *65,
1 66, 280, 283 .
Muranjan, author with Vakil ot
Currency and Prices in India, 45
Mussolini, B., 122, 255, 37 2 » 377, 378
Mysore, 61, 62, 115, 118, 192, 283,
293, 307
— , Maharaja of, 173, 229
N
Nabha, 245, 246, 398, 399
Nadir Shah, 15
Nagpur, 89, 203, 390
— , Bishop of, 290
Nanak, 14
Nandakumar, 47, 48
Naorogi, D., 74
Napier, Sir C. , GO, 74
Napier, Robert, 122
Naples, 141
Napoleon I, 132, 142
Napoleonic Wars, 53
Narayan, J* P** Why Socialism . 247
Nasik Jail, 331
Navigation Acts, 7^
Nawanagar, Jam Sahib of (“Ranji”),
227, 229, 2 45
Nehru, Jawarharlal, 199, 203, 220,
243, 37*, 376, 377,379, 387, 39*
— , Glimpses of World History , 6, it,
12, 26 ^
— , India and the World, 186, l07> 197,
198
Nehru, Motilal, 199
Nelson, Lut'd, 141
Nepal, 78, 318
Nevinson, H., New Spirit in India, 290
New Delhi, 387, 388
Nicholson, J., 80, 81
Nile, Battle of, 132
Northbrook, Lord, 123, r39, 140, 142,
>74, 175
North-West Frontier Province, 167,
191, 212, 255, 261, 262, 266, 268,
269, 329, 333, 335, 36 i
O
Oderic, Friar, 9
O’Dwyer, Sir M., 186, 197, 282, 293
Oldfield, J., 290, 304, 322
Olivier, Lord, 266, 37 2
Omichand, 22, 27, 32
Orissa, 169, 280, 308, 319, 340, 3 8a
Orme, Mr., 272
Os burn, Lt.-Col., Must England Lose
India? 171, 1 92, 237, 275, 29*, 388
Ottawa Conference, 314, 326
Ottoman Empire, 1, 2, 62, 73, *33,
183
Oudh, 39, 41, 47, 4 8 , 8', 75-77, 89,
9 1
Outram, Col., 69
Ovington, Rev. J., A Voyage to Suratt,
xiii, 11, 12, 165, 271, 289, 303, 321
Oxford History of India, 68, 89, 194
P
Paisley, 58
Palestine, 136, 142, 392
Palmerston, Lord, 88, 92, 133
Panchajanya Press, 250, 251
"Panchayats,” 146, 149, 152, 153,
165, 3<>4, 380
Panipat, Battles of, 3, 15
Patel, V. J., 268
Patiala, Maharaja of, 226, 227, 229,
230, 23 1, 246, 358, 395-4°°
Paton, F., 336, 337, 363, 364
Paton, J., 397 .
Pearse, A., Report on the Cotton
Industry, etc., 323
Penda, 291, 32O
Penjdeli, 134
Pennington, J. B., 322
Pepys, Samuel, Diary, 36
Perak Expedition, 123
Perry, Sir E., i66
Peshawar, 88, 255, 343, 344, 359,
363, 368
i| Philippine Islanders, 2O2, 286
Phillips, Sir P., 393
Bigot* Lord, 69
PiEbhit, Raja of, 16O
INDEX
408
Pillal, Economic Conditions in India, 322
Pitt, William, the Elder, see Chatham
Pitt, WiJIiam, the Younger, 40
Plassey, Battle of, 1 6, 21, 23, 24, 26,
Polivre, Pierre, Observations on the
Manners , etc* r 26
Pole, Maj. Graham 3 37*
— , I refer to India, 192
Pollitt, H., 389
Polo, Marco, 289
Fondich£ry, 372
Poona, 63, 140, 217, 286, 267, 389
Popular Fronts, ig8, 360, 372, 373,
375, 389, 392, 393
Pratt, F. G-, Military Burden an India,
328
Prendergast, Gen., 126
Prentice, W. D. R., 250, 252, 336
Press Law of 190O, 1O1
Privat, Dr. E., a88, 334, 338
Prothero, Development of the British
Empire, 132, 134, 141, 142
Punjab, 14, 78-80, 169, 183-185,
196, 197, 227, 236, 245, 246, 263,
266, 283, 284, 292, 293, 304, 318,
3*9. 329, 367
a
Quetta earthquake, 339
R
RatcIifFe* S, K., Sir IV. Wedderburn
and the Indian Reform Movement f 322
Rae- Bareli, 3O0, 381, 391
Raj, Lajpat, 194, 195
Rainy, Sir 313
Rajah, M. C* f 214, 215, 223
Raleigh, Sir YV* f 3
Ramanand, 5
Ranadive, B. T*> 242
Rangoon, 124, 139, 306
Ranji, see Nawanagar
Rao, Shiva, 390
Ratter, Rev* M,, 334
Read, Margaret, The Indian Peasant
Uprooted, 306, 323
Reading, Lord, 229
Reed, Sir S-, 370
Renatid, Major, go
Roberts, Lord, 287, 288
— , Forty-one years in India, 225, 244
RoberUon, W., Life and Times of John
Bright, 92, 118
Roe, Sir T*, 5, 11
Rolland, Romain, Mahatma Gandhi ,
198
Ronaldshay, see Zetland
Roorbach, Prof., International Com-
petition in the Trade of India, 222,
3*4. 3 a 5> 3 2 6
Ross, R., 278
Rothermere, Lord, 312
Round 'l'able Conference, igo, 191,
206, 210, 213, 225, 226, 233, 246,
264, 354. 395. 397
Rowlatt Acts, 183, 184, 196, 198,
239, 3C2
Roy, M. N., 375, 376
Roy, R. M., 74
Rusk in’s Unto this Last , 364
Russell, Bertrand, 337, 363
Russell, Sir W., My Diary in India ,
9°. 9 1
Russian Revolution, 183
Rutherford, Dr. V. H. t Modern India,
>9 8 . 312, 3 2 *, 372
S
Sabarmati, 202
Sal Forests, 296
Salisbury, Marquis of, no, 122, 125,
*35. *39. »42. *73. *76, 193
Sarda Act, 207, 284, 294
Sati, 6, 12, 75, 88
Satyagraha Movement, 255
Sayer, C. B., 31 1, 325
Scripps, R. Paine, 366
Seeley, Capt. J., Wonders of Elora , 289
Seeley, J. R., Expansion of England,
75, 88, 291
Sellick, C. M., 216
Sepoys, 19, 21, 39, 40, 78, 80, 85,90,
92, 321
Seven Years’ War, 131
Shah, Prof., 321 {see also Khambata)
Shaukat Ali, 258
Shaw, G. B., John Bull's Other Island,
390
Shere Ali, 124
Sheridan, R. B,, 34, 40—42, 46-48
Shiels, Dr. D., 347, 348
Shir Shah, 12
Shirras, Prof. F., The Science of Public
Finance, 117
Sholapur, 340, 344, 345. 359
Shore, Hon. F. J., Notes on Indian
Affairs, 85, 89, 92, IIO, III, 321
Shore, Sir John, 289 {see also under
Teign mouth)
Sikhs, 7, 14, 69, 74, 78-80, 90, 22 r,
263-265, 268
Simla, 93, 387-388
Simon Commission, 166, 189, 190,
199, 222, 223, 260, 27c), 303, 304,
3*9. 327, 328. 347. 3&>. 372. 373
Sind, 68, 69
INDEX 4°0
Singh, Tej, see Tej Singh
Singh, Lai, see Lai Singh
Singh, Sir P., 268
Sivaji, 9
Siyar Mutakharin, 18, 27, 31, 45
Slade, Madeleine, 217. 3&3
Slater, Prof. G., 141, 304. 3 22
Sleeman, Sir W., 76, 89
— , Rambles and Recollections, 168, 171,
289
Steevens, G. W-, In India, 73, 199,
226, 227, 244, 268, 275, 290
Slocombe, G., 342
Smith, Adatn, The Wealth of Nations,
3°. 45
Smith, Bosworth, Life of Lord Law-
rence, 138
Smith, Capt. John, 13
Smith, Vincent, 12, 171
Snell, Lord, 372
Spender, J. A., The Changing East,
220
Stevens, Sir C., 193
Stewart, Prof., Some Aspects , etc,, 322
Stewart, F. W., 367
Stokes, Whitby, 175, 176
Strachey, Sir H., 66, 67, 166, 301
Strachey, Sir John, 88, 101, 194, 302,
3 21
Strachey, Gen. Sir R., 103, 106
Strange, Sir T., Elements of Hindu Law,
165
Suez Canal, 127, 137, 142
Suleiman the Magnificent, 2
Sultans of Turkey, 2, 62, 91, 120,
1 33— 1 35, 183
Sujah-Dauia, 61, 73
Sukkar Barrage, 319
Sullivan, J., m, 118
Sunderland, Dr., 143
— , India in Bondage , 166, 290, 295
Suraj-ad-dowlah, 16, 18, 19-22, 140
Surat, xiii, 5, 9, 62
Swaffer, Hannen, 348, 371
Swinburn, A. C., 83, 91
Sydenham, I.ord, 229
Sydenham, T., 71
T
Tacitus, Agricola, 143
Tagore, R., 294, 361
Taj Mahal, 13, 388
Tamuriane, 3, 15
Tanjore, 49, 69
Tantia Topi, 82
Taylor, Dr., History of India, 71
■ — Topography of Dacca, 260
Taylor, J. W., 365
Tegh Bahadur, 29
Teignmouth, Lord, 67, 71, 73 {see
also Shore, Sir John)
Tej Singh, 78, go
Tennant, Dr., 290
Thebaw, King of Burma, 124-126,
140
Thirty Years’ War, I
Thomas, Prof. P. G., 305, 322, 326
Thomason, Gen., 90
Thompson, E., History of India, V2, 27,
38, 39, 46, 47, 74, 96, 139, 164, 277,
291, 392
— , Other Side of the Medal, 373
— , author with Garratt of Rise and
Fulfilment of British Rule, 24, 27, 48,
72, 73, 77. 89, 90, 9*. 266
Thompson, R., *93
Thomson, Lord, 371
Thornton, W., 103, 116
Thugs, 75, 88
Tibet, 135
Tilak, L., 181
Tipu Sultan, 61, 62, 72, 73, 132
Tonnage and Poundage Acts, 51
Torrens, W. M., Empire in Asia , 11,
168, 266 ■■
Toynbee, A., Survey of International
Affairs, 328
Travancore, 108, 167, 292
Trevelyan, Sir C.,' 60, 122, 139. 3*9
— , Life of Macaulay, 291
Trotter, L. G., Life of Hodson, 90
Turkey, see Sultans •
Turner, Major C. R., 345
Tyabji, Abbas, 263
Tyson, G., Danger in India, 31 1, 325
U
United Provinces, 155, 169, 170, 171,
198, 247, 280, 291, 364, 378, 383,
390. 39*
"Untouchables,” 200-203
U.S.S.R., 137, 142, 183, 386
Utley, Freda, Lancashire and the Far
East, 327
V
.Vakil, C. N., Financial Development in
Modern India, 140
— , author with Muranjan of Currency
and Prices in India, 45
Valencia, Archbishop of, 1 1
Verelst, H., View of Rise, etc., 34, 46
_, Narrative of the Transactions in
Bengal, 45
Victoria, Queen, 92, 109, 274, 290
Voelker, Dr., Report on the Improve-
ment of Indian Agriculture , 154, 155,
*68, 304
4io
INDEX
W
Walker, Col., 66, 67, 74
Wallas, Graham, Human Society, 277
Wallick, Dr., 154
Walpole, Sir R-, 27
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen, 199
Walsh, Dr. W., The Moral Damage of
War, 288, 295
Ward, A., 391
Washington Labour Conference, 239
Watson, Admiral, 20, 22, 27
Wattal, P. K., 300
Watts, Mr., 21, 22
Wedderburn, Sir W., 322
Wedgwood, Col. J-» 35*
Wclby Commission, 107, 117, 126,
138-140, 179, 327, 328
Wellesley, Marquis, 6, 62, 71, 95
Wellock, W., 368
Westcott, Dr., see Calcutta, Bishop of
Westland, Mr., 103
Whateley, Monica, 306, 364
Whitley, Rt. Hon. J. H., 152, 323
Whitley Report (Royal Commission on
Labour ), 192, 238, 240, 247, 301,
3<>5-307, 3*0, 321, 323, 327
Wilberforce, W., 165
Wilkinson, £l!en, 216, 223, 337, 364
William II of Germany, 135
William III of England, 46
Williams, G. M., 295
Williams, T., 338
Williams, Professor Rushbrook, 231,
398
Willingdon, Lord, 229, 230, 386, 393
Wilson, President, 183
Wilson, H. H., Editor of Mill's
History , 18, 27, 45, 55, 57. 7G 74>
108, 1 ig, 165, 166, 218, 219, 270,
272, 273> 289, 290, 301, 32 1
Wiltshire Regiment, 291
Wingate, Sir G., Our Financial
Relations with India , 94-96, 1 09, lit,
1 14, 1 15, 1 18
Wolseley, Viscount, Soldier's Pocket-
Book, 141
Wood, E., An Englishman defends
Mother India, 294
Woolf, L., After the Deluge, 27, 69
Wordsworth, W., 57
Wright, H., Population, 320
Wyllie, Sir C., 181
Y
Yerawda Jail, 200
Yusuf Ali, 321
Z
“Zemindars,” 79, 90, 149, 156, 161,
166, 169, 234, 259, 303
Zetland, Marquis of, 352, 386
— , India, A Bird's-Eye View, 1 66, 168,
178, 194
*
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